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LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


Digitized  by  tlie  internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://vyww.arcliive.org/details/cliristusconsolatOOIiaveiala 


\ 


CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR 


OR 


COMFORTABLE  WORDS  FOR  BURDENED 
HEARTS 


BY 

GILBERT    HAVEN 


NEW  YORK:  HUNT  &  EATON 
CINCINNATI :  CRANSTON  &  CURTS 


Copyright,  1893,  by 

HUNT    &     EATON, 

New  Vork. 


Electrotyped,  printed,  and  bound  by 

HUNT    &    EATON, 

150  Fifth  Ay»nuo,   New  York. 


PREFACE. 


SOME  months  before  my  father  left  us  to 
be  "  forever  with  the  Lord  "  he  prepared 
for  the  press  the  following  papers,  which  he 
purposed  publishing  under  the  title  given  to 
this  volume.  He  believed,  without  a  shadow 
of  doubt,  in  the  comfortable  revelations  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  he  has  here  set  forth  the 
message  of  our  Lord  to  burdened  hearts. 

I  have  recently  revised  the  manuscript  and 
added  some  notes  that  may  be  of  interest  to 
the  reader. 

I  hope  that  these  utterances  of  faith  and 
trust  may  bring  to  many  hearts  the  Easter  joy 
that  comforted  him  from  whose  heart  they 
came.  William  Ingraham  Haven. 

Boston^  Mass,,  Easter,  1893. 


CONTENTS. 


I-  rAGB 

Two  Greek  Books  on  the  Life  Beyond ii 

II. 
God  Hiding  and  Revealing  Himself 41 

III. 
The  World  Vanishing 73 

IV. 
Man   Fails,  God  Abides 105 

V. 
Taking  Children  in  His  Arms 135 

VI. 
Endurance — Happiness 179 

VII. 
The  Blessedness  of  the  Blessed  Dead igg 

VIII. 
The  Christian   Soldier 217 

IX. 
The  Enigma  Solved 235 

Notes 263 


"  The  first  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy  :  the  second  man  is 
the  Lord  from  heaven." — i  Cor.  xv,  47. 


•'  Ye  stars  are  but  the  shining  dust 

Of  my  divine  abode, 
The  pavements  of  those  heavenly  courts 

Where  I  shall  reign  with  God. 

"  The  Father  of  eternal  light 
Shall  then  his  beams  display, 

Nor  shall  one  moment's  darkness  mix 
With  that  unvaried  day." 


T. 

TWO   GREEK   BOOKS  ON   THE   LIFE 
BEYOND. 

\yl  THILE  hastening  on  the  sad  errand  of  a 
*  ■  funeral  to  my  native  home  and  parental 
roof,  I  beguiled  the  tedium  of  travel  and  the 
sorrowfulness  of  heart  with  readings  by  the  way. 
I  had  two  books  with  me,  in  which  I  daily  bur- 
ied the  slowly  flying  hours — the  "  Odyssey"  of 
Homer  and  the  New  Testament.  I  had  come, 
in  the  reading  of  the  former  in  course,  to  the 
visit  of  Ulysses  to  the  realm  of  departed  spir- 
its, and  my  mind  naturally  wandered  in  the 
other  among  those  passages  that  talk  of  the 
world  unseen.  You  can  hardly  imagine  the 
contrast.  Both  works  written  in  the  same  lan- 
guage, both  composed  by  men  of  the  highest 
capacity,  both  treating  on  the  same  subject, 
and  both  solemnly  considering  this  theme  ;  but 
how  different  each  from  the  other!  How 
vast  the  space  that  separates  these  two  crea- 
tions ! 

I  am  not  going  to  ask  you  to  look  on  the  one 


12  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

book  as  different  in  origin  from  the  other.  Let 
them  both  be  considered  as  sacred — I  cannot 
say  as  divine,  for  they  are  too  far  apart  from 
each  other  for  both  to  be  divine.  Let  them 
both  be  considered  as  honest  efforts  of  their 
authors.  Then  see  how  immense  the  contrast. 
The  story  of  Homer,  it  should  be  said,  has 
been  long  esteemed  divine.  At  the  very  time 
Christ  came  it  had  such  a  reputation.  So  it 
may  be  contrasted  as  the  best  specimen  of  the 
false  divine  without  revelation  and  without 
Christ,  with  the  correlative  specimen  of  the 
true  divine  by  revelation  and  in  Christ. 

No  one  will  deny  the  superior  rank  of 
Homer.  General  consent  makes  him  the  chief 
of  pagan  poets.  By  pagan  I  do  not  mean  a 
word  of  reproach,  but  of  necessity.  They  are 
the  poets  who  never  had  direct  light  from 
Christian  revelation.  He  ranks  every  Hindoo 
poet  in  clearness,  positiveness,  imagination, 
rhythm,  and  that  highest  of  faculties,  the  per- 
fect bringing  forth  of  things  unknown  and  un- 
seen. He  ranks  every  Persian  and  Arabian 
writer,  every  Egyptian  and  Phoenician  poet,  by 
immeasurable  breadths.  He  has  no  successor 
in    lucidity,   a    shining   clearness,   force,     and 


TIVO  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BEYOND.     IS 

sweetness  of  vision,  among  all  the  writers  of 
Greek  and  Roman  fame.  He  is  sovereign  in 
these  realms  everywhere,  and  to  this  day. 

He  is,  therefore,  no  weak  and  ignorant  illus- 
tration of  the  condition  of  man  without  reve- 
lation. He  is  the  best  possible  illustration  of 
this  condition  in  the  human  race.  By  univer- 
sal suffrage  he  is  put  at  the  head  of  the  writers 
on  whom  the  legacy  of  Christianity  and  the 
word  of  God  never  directly  came. 

We  ma)',  therefore,  turn  away  from  all  lower 
guesses  at  the  secret  of  the  grave,  incoherent 
mumblings  which  fill  volumes  of  heathen  lore, 
in  all  tongues  and  ages,  and  which  have  been 
laboriously  gathered  up  in  the  large  volume 
entitled  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  a  Future 
Life,  which  volume  contains  neither  the  doc- 
trine nor  history  of  that  truth  and  life.  We 
need  not  seek  through  all  these  realms  of  shade 
for  gross  and  feeble  guesses  at  the  truth. 
Homer  is  their  best  representative  ;  elected  by 
unanimous  suffrage,  he  stands  forth  their  chief. 
He  is  sufficient  for  this  place. 

Nor  should  we  bring  to  this  theme  our  own 
information,  gathered  from  centuries  of  Chris- 
tian education,  which    has  created  an   atmos- 


14  CHRIST  US  CONSOLATOR. 

phere  and  made  us  something  other  than 
nature-people  looking  at  this  problem  of  the 
grave  with  nature-eyes.  We  must  get  out  of 
ourselves,  go  back  from  the  light  of  Christian- 
ity, and  the  immeasurable  forms  and  powers  in 
which  it  has  manifested  itself,  and  enter  the 
realm  where  Christianity  is  not,  nor  ever  was — 
the  realm  of  pure  human  nature,  or  as  near 
that  realm  as  it  is  possible  to  get  ;  for  perfect 
nature  without  a  ray  from  the  Gospel  sun  it  is 
impossible  to  find.  Christ  is  the  light,  and  has 
always  been  the  light,  that  lighteth  every  man 
that  Cometh  into  the  world,  and  no  age  or  race 
is  completely  without  his  illuminations.  Yet 
these  rays  are  not  direct ;  they  give  no  sight  of 
the  sun.  They  are  not  traceable  directly  to 
the  word  of  God.  They  are  not  to  be  ac- 
counted as  scripturally  revealed.  They  are 
classed  under  the  head  of  nature. 

If,  therefore,  you  would  see  how  you  would 
be,  how  all  have  been,  in  the  darkness  of  unrev- 
elation,  read  this  story  of  the  visit  of  Ulysses 
to  the  realm  of  the  dead  ;  then  turn  to  the 
pages  of  that  other  Greek  book,  and  see  how 
wonderful  the  contrast — midnight  at  its  utter- 
most darkness,  and  midday  in  its  perfection  of 


TtVO  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BEYOND.     15 

glory.  You  will  also  notice  how  clear  are  the 
limitations  of  that  light,  what  you  can  see,  and 
what  you  cannot  see,  and  rejoice  in  Him  who 
has  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light 
through  the  Gospel.  "  The  first  man  is  of  the 
earth,  earthy  :  the  second  man  is  the  Lord  from 
heaven." 

This  is  the  story  of  Homer :  Ulysses,  having 
been  confined  a  prisoner  by  the  arts  of  Circe 
for  many  long  months,  begged  to  be  allowed 
to  go  home.  She  granted  him  permission,  but 
told  him  he  must  first  visit  the  abode  of  the 
dead  and  inquire  of  a  dead  soothsayer  as  to 
his  future.  If,  however,  Homer  wrote,  as 
some  think — and  as  even  Gladstone,  his  last 
and  best  commentator,  thinks — not  far  from 
the  time  of  Saul,  it  shows  how  general  at  that 
age  was  the  idea  of  learning  the  future  from 
departed  spirits  ;  the  errands  of  Ulysses  and 
SaultoTiresias  and  Samuel  being  almost  iden- 
tical. 

Under  her  direction  he  sails  from  her  island 
straight  to  the  land  of  shades,  Cimmeria, 
whence  comes  our  familiar  Cimmerian  dark- 
ness, crying  himself,  as  with  his  companions 
he    is    borne    unwillingly   to    this   "land    of 


16  CHRISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

deepest  shade,  unpierced  by  human  thought." 
Thus  Bryant  translates  his  description  of  that 
country : 

"  There  lies  the  land,  and  there  the  people  dwell 

Of  the  Cimmerians,  in  eternal  cloud 

And  darkness.     Never  does  the  glorious  sun 

Look  on  them  with  his  rays,  when  he  goes  up 

Into  the  starry  sky,  nor  when  again 

He  sinks  from  heaven  to  earth.     Unwholesome  night 

O'erhangs  the  wretched  race." 

Into  this  thick  darkhes.s  he  comes,  lands, 
digs  a  trench,  pours  into  it  the  blood  of  a  black 
sheep,  and  the  ghosts  come  thronging  round, 
eager  to  taste  the  blood,  which  was  requisite 
before  they  could  acquire  the  gift  of  speech. 
He  sees  naught  here  but  shades.  No  human 
being  lands  on  that  strand.  But  how  bitter 
the  wails  of  these  trooping  ghosts : 

"  Thronging  around  me  came  the 

Souls  of  the  dead  from  Erebus — young  wives 

And  maids  unwedded,  men  worn  out  with  years 

And  toil,  and  virgins  of  a  tender  age 

In  their  new  grief,  and  many  a  warrior  slain 

In  battle,  mangled  by  the  spear  and  clad 

In  bloody  armor,  who  about  tlie  trench 

Flitted  on  every  side,  now  here,  now  there, 

With  gibbering  cries,  and  I  grew  pale  with  fear." 

Bear  in  mind  the  universal  unhappiness  of 
these   spirits.     Not  one  is  in   heaven.     It    is 


TIFO  GREEK'  BOOKS  O.V  LIEE  BEYOND.     17 

Cimmeria,  a  shade,  and  they  its  shadows. 
The  first  he  spoke  with  was  one  of  his  com- 
panions, who  a  day  or  two  before,  drunk,  had 
fallen  off  a  roof,  where  he  was  slumbering, 
missed  the  stairway  and  broke  his  neck.  "  The 
phantom  sobbed  "  its  reply,  and  weeping  and 
wailing  told  how  he  was  slain. 

Then  came  his  mother.  She  drank  the 
blood  which  enabled  her  to  speak,  and  told  in 
piteous  tones  her  piteous  state.     She  asks: 

*'  How  didst  thou  come,  my  child,  a  living  man. 
Into  this  place  of  darkness  ?     Difficult 
It  is  for  those  who  breathe  the  breath  of  life 
To  visit  these  abodes,  through  which  are  rolled 
Great  rivers,  fearful  floods." 

How  sad  the  confession!  His  own  mother, 
high-bom  and  gentle-hearted,  in  the  place  of 
darkness  !  Think  you  had  Ulysses  had  a 
better  faith  he  would  not  have  applied  it  to 
his  own  mother?  Would  he  have  had  her 
shivering  in  the  mists  of  darkness  at  the  door 
of  the  pit  could  he  have  placed  her  on  more 
shining  seats  ?  She  tells  the  story  of  her  death 
as  any  one  on  earth  might  describe  a  lingering 
sickness  up  to  its  fatal  end.  He  sought  to 
press  her  in  his   arms,   but  "  the  form  passed 


18  CHRISTUS  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

through  them  like  a  shadow  or  a  dream."     He 

begged  a  more  solid  embrace.     She  sadly  tells 

the  story  of  the  dead. 

"  'Tis  the  lot  of  all  our  race 
When  they  are  dead.     No  more  the  sinews  bend 
The  bones  and  flesh,  when  once  from  the  wliite  bones 
The  life  departs.     Then  like  a  dream  the  soul 
Flies  off,  and  flits  about  from  place  to  place." 

That  is  the  utmost  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
dead.  The  soul  flits  hither  and  thither  like  a 
dream,  and  always  in  and  with  darkness.  His 
talks  with  other  dames  of  high  degree  reveal 
no  further  light  on  that  state.  Each  discourses 
on  her  earthly  state.  Each  is  still  of  the  earth, 
earthy.  No  Lord  from  heaven  breaks  in  on 
the  scene  and  dissipates  the  gloom  of  the 
grave. 

The  men,  he  said,  were  in  as  lamentable  a 
plight  as  the  women.  Agamemnon,  when  he 
had  drank  the  blood, 

"Wailed  aloud,  and,  bursting  into  tears. 
Stretched  out  his  hand  to  touch  me  ;  but  no  power 
Was  there  of  grasp  or  pressure,  such  as  once 
Dwelt  in  those  active  limbs.     I  could  not  help 
But  weep  at  sight  of  him,  for  from  my  heart 
I  pitied  him." 

Such  is  the  aspect  of  the  chief  of  the  men 
whom  Ulysses  had  known— King  of  the  Greeks, 


TIVO  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BEYOND.     19 

head  of  their  armies.  In  conversing  together 
they  confined  themselves  to  the  past.  There 
was  no  present  and  no  future.  "  Thus  in  sad 
talk  we  stood,  and  freely  flowed  our  tears." 

Achilles,  the  greatest  of  the  Greeks,  the  pet 
hero  of  Homer,  draws  near.  He  alone,  save 
Tiresias,  was  in  superior  abodes.  He  ruled 
among  the  dead,  yet  he  declared  of  his  con- 
dition : 

"  Noble  Ulysses,  speak  not  thus  of  death, 

As  if  thou  couldst  console  me.     I  would  be 

A  laborer  on  earth,  and  serve  for  hire 

Some  man  of  mean  estate,  who  makes  scant  cheer, 

Rather  than  reign  o'er  all  who  have  gone  down 

To  death." 

How  powerful  his  confession !  How  it  tells 
against  those  who  declare  there  is  no  light  in 
revelation,  no  difference  between  Christian  and 
antichristian  states  !  To  be  alive,  the  slave  of 
the  meanest  man,  is  better  than  to  rule  over 
all  the  mighty  dead. 

This  is  the  gift  of  the  greatest  of  the  Gre- 
cians to  his  people ;  his  best,  his  only  glimpse 
into  the  world  beyond.  This  is  the  brightest 
flower  of  Greek  philosophy,  art,  literature,  arms, 
religion.  The  rest  of  the  story  is  no  better. 
He  sees    famous    criminals :  Sisyphus    rolling 


20  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

the  ever-rolling  stone,  Tantalus  tantalized  with 
his  thirst  and  its  impossible  relief,  Tityus  de- 
voured by  vultures  that  never  cease  to  eat  his 
ever-growing  vitals.     He  cries  ©ut  with  fear  : 

"And  now  there  flocked 
Already  round  me,  with  a  mighty  noise, 
The  innumerable  nations  of  the  dead." 

Affrighted,  he  escapes  to  his  ship  of  the  earth. 

This  is  one  Greek  book  on  the  future  state. 
It  is  the  best  that  nation  afforded  to  its  peo- 
ple. It  is  better  than  any  other  nation, 
without  the  Bible,  afforded  its  people.  It 
never  improved  to  the  days  of  Christ.  Plato 
adds  no  light  to  Homer.  Socrates  leaves 
off  his  discussion  with  a  guess;  he  has  no  real 
knowledge.  Virgil  has  Elysian  fields,  but  the 
most  of  his  spirits  fail  to  enter  them,  and  his 
crowd  of  ghosts  are  almost  identical  with  Ho- 
mer's, a  thousand  years  apart  in  time,  but  not 
a  moment  in  knowledge. 

The  Greek  people  were  fed  on  this  food. 
This  story  was  first  told  by  Ulysses  at  a  royal 
banquet.  I  think  how  sadly  those  hearers 
must  have  listened  :  those  ladies  of  the  court, 
hearing  these  sorrows  of  the  great  dames  of 
Greece  ;  those  heroic  men,  the  mournful  state  of 


TIVO  GREEK  BOOKS  OX  LIFE  BEYOND.     21 

their  historic  heroes,  and  feeHng  that  this  fate 
of  their  fathers  and  mothers  wasto  be  their 
own.  What  was  there  to  stimulate  faith  in 
these  stories — truths  to  them  of  the  most 
sacred  sort  ?  Tell  me,  ye  who  fancy  light  can 
come  from  other  sources  than  the  word  of 
God — ye  who  believe  in  Emerson  and  Tyn- 
dall  and  other  lesser  lights  who  rule  your  night, 
and  make  it  darker — is  there  any  light  at  all 
in  your  philosophy  superior  to  that  which 
shone  over  the  Achaians'  halls,  where  Ulysses 
recited  this  mournful  tale  ?  Has  humanity 
any  glimpse  of  those  fields  Elysian  which  was 
not  granted  to  this  blind  seer  and  singer? 
Leave  out  to-day  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  and 
men  gather  now  drearily  in  seances,  and  get 
chilling  grasps  of  dead  friends'  hands,  and  hear 
sad  wailings  of  their  present  state.  There  is 
not  a  step  ahead  in  the  seance  of  to-day  from 
the  Ulyssean  visit  three  thousand  years  ago. 
Not  long  since  I  heard  one  tell  how  a  spirit 
visited  him  through  a  medium,  who  bewailed 
her  miserable  fate,  beaten  and  buffeted  and  spit 
upon  by  her  companions,  a  modern  blackness 
of  darkness  as  mournful  as  that  in  which  these 
spirits  wandered.    That  was  their  best.    Those 


22  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

who  are  reported  better  off  are  still  material, 
earthy,  as  fond  of  life  and  crying  for  it  as 
strongly  as  did  Achilles.  "  The  first  man  is  of 
the  earth,  earthy."  He  can  never  rise  above 
that  condition.  He  is  dragged  down  by  his 
ignorance  and  his  sin.  He  fears  death  itself. 
He  fears  its  revelations.  "  The  fears  of  the 
tomb,"  Campbell  rightly  calls  it;  or,  as  Job 
more  powerfully  says,  "  The  land  of  darkness 
and  the  shadow  of  death  ;  a  land  of  darkness,  as 
darkness,"  or  darkness  that  is  darkness ; 
"  and  of  the  shadow  of  death,"  the  shade 
of  the  death-shade,  ghost  of  ghost,  terror  of 
terror,  hades  of  hades,  "without  any  order," 
the  chaos  of  nature,  "  and  where  the  light  is  as 
darkness."  How  terrible  the  picture !  The 
very  light  itself  makes  only  a  deeper  night. 
Yet  this  is  not  as  terrible  as  the  truth.  To 
this  day,  with  a  line  of  a  hundred  ancestors 
standing  between  us  and  those  who  listened  to 
Ulysses  and  Job,  there  is  no  more  beauty  in 
the  grave  itself,  in  death  or  the  dead  body, 
than  there  was  then.  The  body  is  still  an  ob- 
ject of  fear  and  repulsion.  We  hasten  to  bury 
it  out  of  our  sight.  It  becomes  fetidness  and 
dust.     You  adorn  it  with  flowers,  make  your 


T^VO  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BE  YOND.     23 

cemeteries  beautiful  parks,  the  most  beautiful 
of  parks,  and  still  your  graveyard  is  not  a 
delightsome  thing.  It  is  chaos  come  again, 
the  worst  chaos  because  superinduced  upon 
the  best  cosmos.  No  order  like  that  of  comely 
man  and  woman ;  no  disorder  like  their  de- 
struction. What  shall  change  this  view  that 
nature  gives — so  dreary,  so  desolate,  so  fear- 
ful, so  horrible.? 

What.'*  Listen  I  There  is  another  Greek 
book,  the  work  of  several  penmen,  some  native 
to  the  tongue,  most  foreign,  written  about 
two  thirds  of  the  time  back  between  us  and 
Homer,  nearer  to  his  age  by  a  thousand  years 
than  to  ours.  It  does  not  profess  to  have  his 
graces  of  rhythm  or  his  varied  and  vivid  fancy. 
It  has  never  been  translated  by  poets,  nor  is  it 
a  favorite  with  mere  philosophers  without 
faith.  Yet  for  clearness  of  view,  simplicity  of 
statement,  reach  of  faith,  grandeur  of  imagina- 
tion, and  solidity  of  confidence,  all  that  all  the 
world  has  elsewhere  said  or  sung  is  naught, 
and  worse,  to  its  infinitude  of  strength. 

The  Lord  from  heaven  is  the  second  man. 
He  has  come ;  he  has  brought  life  and  immor- 
tality to   light.     He  has  shed  the  sunlight  of 


24  CHRISTUS  COA'SOLA  TOR. 

the  throne  in  the  barrows  of  the  dead.  He 
has  walked  in  Cimmeria,  and  made  it  bright  as 
the  beams  of  the  morning.  He  has  revealed 
to  us  the  happy^  fields,  and  shown  us  who 
walk  together  there.  He  has  even  taken  the 
dusty  earth  from  its  coffin  and  urn,  and  made 
it  animate  with  eternal  life  and  glory.  How 
wondrous  the  change  !  See  how  early  it  be- 
gins in  this  second  Greek  book.  Hardly  is  his 
advent  announced  that  this  fact  is  not  an- 
nounced with  it.  Before  the  sun  appears  in 
form  his  radiance  shines.  "  Far  off  his  com- 
ing shone."  In  exultant  song  Zacharias  de- 
clares, **  The  dayspring  from  on  high  hath 
visited  us,  to  give  light  to  them  that  sit  in 
darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  death."  This 
was  before  He  was  born — the  Divine  Ulysses 
■ — who  was  not  only  to  visit  the  dead,  but  to 
destroy  death  itself. 

The  acclaim  of  the  angels  announcing, 
"  Peace  on  earth  "  to  good-willing  men,  Avas 
in  the  same  key.  Peace  and  good-will  must 
cover  death,  or  there  is  no  peace. 

Then  come  the  words  and  works  of  the  Mas- 
ter, lifting  dead  bodies  from  their  couches 
into  all  the  fullness  of  their  lost  health,  call- 


TIVO  GREEK'  BOOK'S  ON  LIFE  BE  YOND.     25 

ing  them  back  from  loathsome  corruption 
into  serene  and  solid  beauty.  Then  come 
his  words,  fit  accompaniment  for  such  works: 
"  I  am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life :  .  .  . 
whosoever  livcth  and  believeth  in  me  shall 
never  die."  "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in 
three  days  I  will  raise  it  up.  .  .  .  But  he 
spake  of  the  temple  of  his  body."  "  I  lay 
down  my  life  of  myself.-  I  have  power  to  lay  it 
down,  and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again.  This 
commandment  have  I  received  of  my  Father." 
"  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  The  hour  is 
coming,  and  now  is,  when  the  dead  shall  hear 
the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God  :  and  they  that 
hear  shall  live.  For  as  the  Father  hath  life  in 
himself,  so  hath  he  given  to  the  Son  to  have 
life  in  himself.  .  .  .  Marvel  not  at  this:  for 
the  hour  is  coming,  in  the  which  all  that  are 
in  the  graves  shall  hear  his  voice,  and  shall 
come  forth ;  they  that  have  done  good,  unto 
the  resurrection  of  life ;  and  they  that  have- 
done  evil,  unto  the  resurrection  of  damnation." 
What  august,  what  awful  power  is  here  !  Ten- 
derer are  other  words :  "  Let  not  your  heart 
be  troubled :  ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also 
in  me.     In   my  Father's  house  are  many  man- 


26  CHRISTUS  CO^^SOLATOR. 

sions  :  if  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told  you. 
I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you.  ...  I  will 
come  again,  and  receive  you  unto  myself;  that 
where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also."  How  in- 
finitely different  this  from  Achilles  striding  off 
over  the  meadows,  leaving  his  mournful  infe- 
riors shivering  in  the  darkness  ! 

Christ,  our  Leader,  does  not  thus  stride  gloom- 
ily and  haughtily  away.  He  talks  to  his  com- 
panions, who  are  tearful  and  affrighted,  in  the 
most  cheering  manner.  Before  he  goes  to 
Gethsemane,  to  the  agonies  and  bloody  death, 
which  he  saw  and  would  not  flee,  for  four 
chapters,  which  must  have  been  for  an  hour, 
he  enlarges  on  cheering  and  helpful  themes. 
He  tells  them  for  the  first  time  distinctly 
about  the  third  Person  in  the  Trinity,  and  un- 
folds his  twofold  character  and  work — Sancti- 
fier  and  Comforter;  especially  the  latter,  as 
they  were  to  be  in  especial  need  of  the  latter. 
Being  divine,  and  after  these  bold  and  cheer- 
ful words,  to  prove  they  were  no  mere  boast, 
he  condescends  to  die.  Weakest  of  the  weak 
he  mounts  the  cross.  He  lays  down  his  life  as 
powerless  as  a  babe.  Death  hath  complete 
dominion    over  him.     He  wrestles   not.     He 


TWO  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BE  YOND.     27 

puts  forth  no  effort  to  save  himself.  He  does 
not  even  toss  and  writhe  in  natural  resistance 
to  his  fate.  Never  was  a  babe's  death  quicker 
or  easier.  **  Pilate  marveled  if  he  were  already 
dead."  He  goes,  not  like  Ulysses,  and  Or- 
pheus, and  Hercules,  alive  to  hades ;  but,  like 
every  other  man,  he  goes  dead.  Those  myths 
never  affect  the  world's  heart,  because  they  do 
not  suffer  the  world's  experience.  Christ  suf- 
fers unto  death,  suffers  the  severest  agonies, 
which  everybody  dreads,  and  dies  the  quietest 
and  easiest  in  these  very  agonies.  He  touches 
every  experience  in  that  hour  of  agony  and 
utter  weakness.  How  different  this  from  Her- 
cules marching  in  hades !  The  one  strongest 
of  the  strong,  and  in  the  very  towering  of  his 
strength ;  the  other  weakest  of  the  weak,  and 
in  the  very  weakest  of  his  weakness,  he  sinks 
into  the  power  of  death.  No  shade  so  thin 
wanders  about  the  pit  of  Ulysses.  They  have 
a  show  of  strength,  he  none. 

The  victory  is  complete.  Never  more  so ; 
the  dead  body  hangs  a  perfect  corpse.  It  is 
taken  down  limp  and  clammy — dead.  It  is 
stretched  as  such  ;  bathed,  washed,  wrapped, 
and  borne  off  as  such.     You  know  their  help- 


28  CHRIST  US  CONSOLATOK. 

lessness  by  many  a  sad  experience.  He  is 
shut  up  in  the  tomb.  Locked  is  the  door,  a 
great  stone  rolled  before  it,  sealed,  and 
watched  by  a  band  of  soldiers.  Can  Death 
ask  for  a  better  compliance  with  his  condi- 
tions  ?  It  is  done  as  he  has  commanded,  perfect- 
ly done,  satisfactorily  done  ;  governor  and  king 
and  chief  priest  are  content.  The  devil  can 
conceive  of  nothing  further.  His  victory  is 
complete.  He  has  killed  and  entombed  the 
Son  of  God.  Hercules,  the  Mighty,  lies  slain 
among  his  foes.  Ulysses,  the  Wise,  is  out- 
witted by  his  enemies.  They  accept  their 
victory  and  are  satisfied.  When  lo  !  he  is  not 
here!  He  is  arisen!  He  is  gone!  Death  is 
outwitted,  overmastered.  Out  of  this  all-eater 
of  man  cometh  forth  meat  for  the  reanimation 
of  all  men.  Out  of  the  grave  he  marches 
serene  and  calm  and  mighty.  Death  hath  no 
more  dominion  over  him,  nor  over  his.  He  has 
done  it.  Not  fable,  not  poetry,  not  marvelous 
rhythm,  but  fact — most  marvelous  fact!  Every- 
body rushes  to  him.  He  is  lifted  up  triumph- 
ant  over  death.  He  draws  all  men  unto  him. 
Then  comes  the  application  of  this  victory. 
His  words,   his  works,  his  own  divine    deed, 


TIVO  GREEK  BOOKS  OiX  LIFE  BE  YOND.     29 

begin  to  tell  on  the  world  about.  He  ascends 
to  heaven,  a  thing  easily  to  be  done  after 
ascending  from  the  tomb,  and  the  story  flies 
through  the  world.  "  Jesus  and  the  resurrec- 
tion "  his  disciples_  preach,  and  everybody 
hears.  Some  reject,  some  despise,  some  hate ; 
all  hear.  Persecutions  arise,  but  they  hear  the 
more,  "Jesus  and  the  resurrection."  Death 
comes  violently,  but  they  hear  the  more  yet. 
For  before  the  assembled  authorities  and  popu- 
lace of  Jerusalem — on  the  very  spot  possibly 
where  Jesus  sank  powerless  in  the  grasp  of 
death — the  first  of  his  newly  converted  preach- 
ers and  disciples,  proBably  a  convert  of  the 
Pentecostal  days,  his  first  witness,  declares  with 
his  dying  lips  that  his  dying  eyes  behold 
**  Jesus  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God,"  and 
he  asks  him  to  receive  his  spirit.  How  differ- 
ent this  from  Homeric  darkness,  from  Socra- 
tean  guess !  No  wailing  ghost  here,  no  wan- 
dering shade  here,  seeking  to  taste  a  drop  of 
blood  that  it  may  tell  its  woes  to  mortal  ears. 
"  Receive  my  spirit ;  "  and  having  so  said,  he 
fell  asleep.  Asleep  his  body,  received  his 
spirit  into  Jesus'sarms.  He  who  a  few  weeks 
before  had  said  to  a  dying  neighbor,  "  This  day 


§0  CHRIST  us  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise,"  saw  the 
servant  who  looked  up, 

"  And  from  a  happy  place 
God's  glory  smote  him  on  the  face." 

Not  only  God's  glory,  but  the  very  counte- 
nance of  God,  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  smiled 
upon  his  disciple,  who  fell  asleep  as  a  tired 
babe  falls  asleep  in  its  mother's  arms,  while 
she  smiles  her  benedictions  into  its  weary 
eyes. 

Thenceforward  fled  the  mighty  word  over  the 
realms  where  Homer  sung,  over  the  realms 
where  Ulysses  sailed,  around  the  great  sea, 
and  over  the  voluptuous  East,  and  into  the 
icy  North — the  word  flew,  "  Jesus  and  the 
resurrection."  The  future  of  man  is  secure. 
He  shall  come  forth.  He  shall  renew  himself 
in  glory  everlasting. 

Then  came  the  letters  of  argument  and  con- 
solation :  letters  describing  the  intermediate 
conditions,  so  far  as  description  is  permitted 
and  allowable;  letters  limiting  the  wildness  of 
the  human  fancy  and  human  hope  within  due 
bounds ;  letters  suggesting  the  time  and  man- 
ner of  this  advent,  yet  equally  careful  to  ab- 
stain from  too  great  detail.     How  wonderful 


TH^O  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BEYOND.     31 

are  some  of  their  passages  !  Read  them  by 
the  side  of  Homer's  lines,  and  how  his  graceful 
rhythms  wither  and  decay  !  "  We  know  that, 
if  our  earthly  house  of  this  tabernacle  were 
dissolved,  we  have  a  building  of  God,  a  house 
not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens." 
"We  know!"  No  Greek  before  them  ever 
knew — nay,  ever  dared  to  guess — this  sublime 
fact.  "  For  me  to  die  is  gain."  Socrates  and 
Cicero  never  dared  say  that,  nor  Homer,  nor 
Achilles.  "Gain?"  "Gain?"  "  To  die,  gain  ?" 
Whence  know  you  this?  Only  because  the 
Lord  from  heaven  hath  come  from  heaven,  and 
hath  transformed  the  earthly  into  the  heavenly. 
That  fifteenth  of  First  Corinthians,  written 
to  the  most  sensual  and  voluptuous  city  of 
Greece,  how  it  shoots  its  light  across  the  ages 
of  the  grave  and  shines  bright  over  its  farther 
gate !  How  it  lifts  up  that  graceless  city 
through  its  saints  into  the  heights  of  grace  ! 
How  it  riddles  all  mere  psychical  ascension 
and  every  attempt  to  abolish  the  bodily  resur- 
rection !  How  it  sets  forth  with  undying 
strength  the  steady  assurance  that  our  dead 
bodies  shall  live  again  !  What  a  shout  it  sends 
through    the    hollow    depths    of  hades !      "  O 


82  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  O  grave,  where  is 
thy  victory  ?  The  sting  of  death  is  sin  ;  and 
the  strength  of  sin  is  the  law.  But  thanks  be 
to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  victory  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  What  a  change  from 
the  tearful,  wailing  shades  of  Homer's  heaven 
to  this  burst  of  rapture  I 

That  is  the  new  Greek  against  the  old ; 
Christian  against  heathen ;  God  against  Satan. 
These  passages  grow  denser  and  more  delight- 
ful as  we  draw  toward  the  close.  The  letters 
have  more  in  them  than  the  gospels,  Corin- 
thians than  Romans,  John  than  Paul ;  and  all 
consummate  themselves  in  the  grandest  book 
in  the  world,  the  Revelation.  What  care  we 
that  we  cannot  understand  its  trumpets  and 
vials  and  horsemen  and  horns?  We  cannot 
understand  the  convolutions  of  symphony,  but 
we  can  the  gentle  melody  that  purls  through 
the  roaring,  surging,  upheaving  mass  of  song. 
So  through  this  book  runs  every  stream  of 
melody — the  beatitude  of  the  spirits  of  the 
holy  dead.  It  opens  with  the  promises  of  this 
bliss  :  "  These  shall  follow  the  Lamb  whither- 
soever he  goeth."  "  They  shall  sit  on  my 
throne."     They  shall    be  led   to  "  living   foun- 


TIVO  GREEK  BOOK'S  ON  LIFE  BEYOND.    33 

tains  of  waters :  and  God  shall  wipe  away  all 
tears  from  their  eyes,"  The  old  grand  Greek 
saw  only  tears  in  the  eyes  of  the  dead ;  his 
mother,  his  leader,  his  servant,  his  greatest 
soldier,  Hercules  himself — all  wail  and  weep. 
But  the  new  grander  Greek  sees  God  wiping 
away  all  tears.  Think  how  changed  that 
book  had  Ulysses  seen  Jupiter  wiping  away 
his  mother's  tears.  And  so  on  and  on  through 
this  book  of  disclosure  appear  harpers  harping 
on  their  harps ;  crowds  on  a  sea  of  glass  min- 
gled with  fire,  yet  never  breaking  nor  burning ; 
rivers  of  water  of  life ;  trees  laden  with  pre- 
cious fruits,  which  drop  their  richness  every 
month,  until  the  glorious  golden  city  breaks 
on  our  view,  descending  from  God  out  of 
heaven,  with  its  gigantic  gates,  each  of  a  single 
pearl,  its  wall  of  specified  precious  stones,  its 
light  the  Lamb,  its  temple  the  Lord  God,  its 
people  the  saints  of  the  Most  High. 

Here  we  must  pause.  How  infinite  the  dis- 
tance from  Ulysses  crying  as  he  is  drawn  into 
dark  Cimmeria  and  fleeing  from  its  multitude 
of  ghosts,  "  the  innumerable  nations  of  the 
dead,"  and  John  talking  with  the  angel  who 
measures  the  city,  and  beholding  its  inhabitants, 


34  CHRISTUS  CONSOLA  TOR. 

and  listening  to  their  songs!  That  is  the 
change  wrought  in  the  race  of  man  by  the 
Gospel.  That  is  the  immortality  Christ  has 
brought  to  light.  That  is  the  Lord  from  heaven 
already  dwelUng  among  men  and  giving  them 
a  joy  of  peace  and  assurance  such  as  never 
could  otherwise  be  known. 

Three  things,  among  many,  we  pause  to  no- 
tice : 

First,  that  the  consummation  of  this  tri- 
umph is  at  the  resurrection.  Homer  never 
dreamed  that  those  spirits  would  be  reunited  to 
their  bodies.  The  most  he  hoped  for  was  a 
happy  home  sometime  for  some  spirits.  But 
the  Gospel  laughs  at  impossibilities  and  leaps 
chasms  that  Nature  never  dare  look  into.  It 
puts  the  crowning  glories  at  and  after  the  raised, 
revived,  and  glorified  body  is  reunited  to  its 
spirit.  That  is  its  objective  point.  Thither  it 
tends.  There  it  gazes.  That  is  its  goal  and 
beginning  of  glory.  Christ  put  his  death  and 
resurrection  within  forty-eight  hours  of  each 
other.  He  puts  ours  ages  apart.  What  of  it  ? 
The  science  that  can  connect  the  two  ends  of  a 
laboratory  table  with  the  magnetic  spark  can 
gird  the  world  with  its  flame.     Christ  can  raise 


TIVO  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BE  YOND.    35 

himself  in  one  day  and  portions  of  two.  He 
can  raise  us  if  millions  of  years  intervene. 
Thus  and  then  he  will  show  forth  his  glory. 
He  reserves  the  highest  splendors  for  that 
crowning  hour. 

But,  second,  the  time  between  is  spent  deli- 
ciously ;  whether  asleep  he  does  well,  whether 
awake  he  does  well ;  all  is  well.  The  interme- 
diate state  is  not  dwelt  upon  as  the  post-resur- 
rection state,  but  it  is  sufficiently  delineated  to 
show  that  it  is  a  state  of  peace.  Happy  on 
Jesus's  breast  to  lie  and  in  his  smile  to  bask! 
No  Christian  can  find  a  gloomy  thought  in  the 
reference  to  the  blessed  dead.  "  Blessed  are 
the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord  ;"  not  shall  be — • 
"  are."  "  They  rest  from  their  labors,  and  their 
works  do  follow  them."  The  gloom  of  Job, 
which  his  faith  defied,  but  could  not  abolish,  is 
all  gone  in  the  New  Testament.  Stephen  goes 
home  rejoicing ;  Paul  exults  in  the  day  of  de- 
liverance ;  Peter  looks  for  and  hastens  after  the 
coming  of  the  Lord  ;  John  sees  own  sonship 
changing  into  his  likeness  when  he  shall  appear. 
All  are  serene,  happy,  jubilant.  The  inter- 
mediate world  to  a  Christian  is  a  world  of  life 
and  love.     It  is  delightful,  it  is  desirable.     Let 


36  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

your  heart  rest  in  peace,  in  the  confidence 
that  "  Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the 
Lord." 

Third,  this  hope  is  Hmited ;  Ulysses  makes 
no  limit  in  virtue  and  vice.  His  characters 
boast,  in  hades,  of  the  vilest  amours.  Achilles, 
who  rules  below,  is  there,  as  above,  a  polluted 
chief;  while  his  own  mother  wads  in  outer 
darkness.  But  'tis  not  so  in  the  Christian's 
future  world.  The  discriminations  are  sharp. 
Some  shall  arise  to  shame  and  everlasting 
contempt.  What  a  shame  of  soul  is  that  ! 
How  terrible  may  this  awakening  be  !  A  fallen 
minister,  driven  by  remorse,  withdrew  to  com- 
mit suicide,  when  the  thought  of  that  doom 
rolled  over  his  soul.  "  Shame  and  everlasting 
contempt,"  he  kept  repeating  to  himself; 
"  Shame  and  everlasting  contempt."  He  shrank 
back  from  a  further  and  an  eternal  plunge  into 
that  abyss,  and  was  saved,  though  not  from 
present  shame  and  contempt.  Take  heed,  O 
great  man,  lest  you  awake  to  that  terrible 
doom  !  You  may  ride  in  your  lordly  carriage 
through  lordly  ways  ;  you  may  be  the  proud 
and  petted  head  of  grand  society  ;  but  if  your 
life  is  false  and  corrupt,  you  shall  surely  awake 


TIVO  GREEK  BOOKS  ON  LIFE  BEYOND.     S7 

that  resurrection  morning  to  shame  and  ever- 
lasting contempt.  God  help  you  to  avoid  that 
terrible  doom  !  Some  shall  have  a  resurrec- 
tion to  damnation.  Who?  They  that  have 
done  evil. 

"  Blessed  are  they  that  .  .  .  have  right  to 
the  tree  of  life,  and  .  .  .  enter  in  through  the 
gates  into  the  city.  For  without  are  dogs,  and 
sorcerers,  and  whoremongers,  and  murderers, 
and  idolaters,  and  whosoever  maketh  and  lov- 
eth  a  lie."     How  sharp  the  lines ! 

The  Christian's  heaven  is  no  mixed,  promis- 
cuous muddle,  like  a  world's  town,  and  some- 
times like  a  world's  church.  It  is  separate, 
seclusive.  Forever  so  :  "  He  that  is  filthy, 
shall  be  filthy  still ;  he  that  is  holy,  shall  be 
holy  still."  See  to  it  that  you  accept  the 
book  of  God,  the  only  revealer  of  the  life  be- 
yond. Accept  it  with  its  own  limitations. 
Accept  it  in  honest  fear  of  falling.  Accept  it 
in  humble  hope  of  standing.  Accept  it  in  joy- 
ful assurance  of  possessing  heaven.  Accept  it 
for  your  consolation,  for  your  perfection  in  right- 
eousness. What  things  we  have  seen  enter 
these  realms.  Yet  all  who  have  entered  in 
Christ  are  in  him  to-day,  and  shall  grow  in  bliss 


38  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

till  the  ripening  hour  of  the  resurrection,  when 
the  Lord  from  heaven  shall  again  appear, 
take  the  earthy  with  the  heavenly,  and  take 
both  earth  and  spirit  in  its  new  and  heavenly 
unit  unto  the  glory  which  he  had  with  the 
Father  before  the  world  was,  the  glory  ever- 
lasting. Wherefore  comfort  one  another  with 
these  words : 

"  Weep  for  your  dead  no  more  ; 

Friends,  be  of  joyful  cheer  ; 
Our  star  moves  on  before, 

Our  narrow  path  shines  clear. 

"  Now  is  His  truth  revealed. 

His  majesty  and  might  ; 
The  grave  has  been  unsealed  ; 

Christ  is  our  life  and  light ! 

"His  victory  has  destroyed 
The  shaft  that  once  could  slay  ; 

Sing  praise  !  the  tomb  is  void 
Where  the  Redeemer  lay." 


"  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  him." — Psalm 
xcvii,  2. 

"  God  is  light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all." — i  John 
i.  5. 

"  O  Father  of  eternal  life,  and  all 

Created  glories  under  thee  ! 
Resume  thy  Spirit  from  this  world  of  thrall 

Into  true  liberty. 

"  Either  disperse  these  mists  which  blot  and  fill 

My  perspective  still  as  they  pass. 
Or  else  remove  me  hence  unto  that  hill 

Where  I  shall  need  no  glass." 


II. 

GOD  HIDING  AND  REVEALING  HIMSELF. 

"\  T  7"E  are  embosomed  in  mystery.  Inwhat- 
'  '  ever  direction  we  turn  our  gaze  it  is  lost 
in  clouds  and  darkness.  However  eagerly  we 
pursue  a  path  which  we  think  is  flooded  with 
light  we  soon  find  our  way  lost  in  the  thick 
darkness.  Within  and  around  every  brilliant 
truth  lie  immeasurable  clouds.  The  faint  in- 
crease of  knowledge  only  makes  the  gloom  in 
which  it  is  involved  the  denser. 

In  our  childhood  the  feebleness  of  the  light 
is  scarcely  sufficient  to  dissipate  the  fogs  that 
surround  the  intellect.  If  heaven  lies  about 
us  in  our  infancy,  it  is  only  in  the  intuitions 
of  infancy.  The  clouds  that  gather  around 
the  growing  boy  belong  to  his  condition. 
He  is  the  white  paper  of  the  philosopher, 
the  unwritten  tablet,  ignorant  of  the  world 
into  which  he  has  so  unceremoniously  en- 
tered. But  after  all  his  strivings  after  knowledge 
and  attainments,  then  the  babe  of  barbarians, 
if  the  first  philosopher  of  the  first  schools,  must 


42  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

still  confess  the  infinitude  of  the  darkness  that 
lies  about  him.  The  clear-seeing  is  not  neces- 
sarily the  far-seeing.  In  truth,  no  class  are  so 
skeptical  as  those  who  profess  the  largest 
scientific  attainments,  no  class  so  readily 
acknowledge  their  ignorance  as  those  the 
most  scientifically  learned.  We  affirm  the 
more  readily  the  more  we  know  that  igno- 
rance veils  the  cause  of  all  the  phenomena  that 
address  our  attention.  We  confess  that  we  are 
utterly  unable  to  rend  the  robe  in  which  Nature 
conceals  herself.  The  more  passionate  our 
endeavor  to  get  at  the  heart  of  the  mystery, 
the  more  swiftly  and  surely  does  she  elude  our 
grasp  and  present  to  baffled  efforts  the  same 
impenetrable  guise. 

Under  such  conditions  of  being,  with  ac- 
knowledged inabil'ty  to  pierce  to  their  depths 
the  shallow  recesses  of  our  own  nature  or  of 
the  created  world  about  us,  it  is  natural  that 
the  infinite  God  should  surround  himself  to 
our  comprehension  with  clouds  and  darkness. 
The  weakness  we  feel  in  our  attempts  to  ex- 
amine into  our  own  nature  leads  us  irresistibly 
to  the  conclusion  that  every  avenue  of  approach 
to  God  is  shrouded  in  yet  deeper  darkness  and 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  VEALING  HIMSELF.    43 

mystery.  We  find,  therefore,  that  in  whatever 
way  we  seek  to  contemplate  him  he  hides 
himself  steadily  from  our  view. 

I.  If  we  consider  his  nature,  we  must  ac- 
knowledge that  we  can  obtain  but  faint 
glimpses  of  him. 

The  Essence  or  Spirit  which  we  call  God, 
and  which  we  acknowledge  to  contain  infinite 
attributes,  in  its  activity  or  mode  of  existence 
is  deeply  mysterious.  How  his  personality 
can  agree  with  his  ubiquity,  how  he  can  be 
everywhere  at  the  same  time,  superintend 
all  concerns,  sustain  all  existences,  execute  all 
purposes  at  each  and  every  moment,  is  far  be- 
yond our  power  to  comprehend.  Our  con- 
sciousness can  be  exercised  only  on  a  single 
object  at  a  time.  Though  the  mind  may  be 
entertaining  a  thousand  guests,  it  can  direct 
its  attention  to  them  only  singly.  But  such  a 
contraction  is  not  imposed  on  God.  He  is 
not  obliged  to  neglect  all  other  interests  for 
the  purpose  of  rightly  attending  to  one.  He  can 
exert  his  power  in  creating  new  and  directing 
old  worlds,  in  thrusting  out  vegetation  in  its 
innumerable  forms  upon  the  earth,  and  send- 
ing forth  innumerable  worlds  into  space.     How 


44  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

this  can  be  is  too  wonderful  for  us.    It  is  high  ; 
we  cannot  attain  unto  it. 

No  less  mysterious  are  his  omniscience  and 
omnipotence.  He  is  not  present  as  a  mere 
atom  or  breeze,  or  mindless  thing;  he  is 
present  everywhere,  knowing  everything  and 
controlling  everything.  This  is  also  far  beyond 
our  thoughts.  It  cannot  be  reduced  to  our 
measurements.  We  can  prove  the  necessity 
of  such  a  nature,  we  can  see  that  only  by 
possessing  it  can  he  be  God ;  that  through  it 
alone  can  he  keep  in  regular  action  the  works 
of  his  own  hands ;  through  it  alone  can  he 
give  the  created  soul  confidence  in  the  immu- 
tability of  his  purposes  and  thus  afford  it 
consolation  and  strength.  This  irradiates  all 
the  darkness  around  us  with  light  divine ;  this 
destroys  our  fears  that  we  are  victims  of  mere 
chance,  which  may  shoot  us  whither  it  blindly 
pleases,  like  gusts  of  a  whirlwind,  which  them- 
selves do  not  know  whence  they  come  or 
whither  they  go.  Binding  the  universe  har- 
moniously together,  giving  it  a  power  and  wis- 
dom and  love  which  are  infinite  and  ceaseless, 
imparting  to  every  atom  of  space  and  every 
moment  of  eternity  a  directing,  vivifying  spirit, 


GOD  HIDING  AND  REVEALING  HIMSELF.     45 

this  nature  of  God  presents  the  whole  crea- 
tion as  animated  by  one  soul,  created  for  one 
end,  governed  by  one  law,  and  reposing  in  the 
arms  of  one  Power.  Yet  in  itself  this  Power 
is  hidden  from  our  gaze.  This  source  of  all 
light  is  the  center  of  deepest  darkness.  As 
has  been  sublimely  remarked  :  "  How  the  di- 
vine Being  himself  exists  in  an  essential  and 
eternal  nature  of  his  own,  without  beginning 
as  well  as  without  end ;  how  he  can  be  present 
at  the  same  moment  in  every  point  of  illimitable 
space  without  excluding  any  one  of  his  crea- 
tures from  the  room  it  occupies ;  how,  unseen, 
unfelt  by  all,  he  can  maintain  a  pervading  and 
intimate  acquaintance  and  contact  with  all 
parts  and  portions  of  the  universe ;  how  he 
can  at  once  be  all  eye,  all  ear,  all  presence,  all 
energy,  yet  interfere  with  none  of  the  percep- 
tions and  actions  of  his  creatures — this  is  what 
equally  baffles  the  mightiest  and  the  meanest 
intellect ;  this  is  the  great  mystery  of  the  uni- 
verse, which  is  at  once  the  most  certain  and  the 
most  incomprehensible  of  all  things — a  truth  at 
once  enveloped  in  a  flood  of  light  and  an  abyss 
of  darkness  !  Inexplicable  itself,  it  explains 
all  beside.     It  casts  a  clearness  on  every  ques- 


46  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

tion,  accounts  for  every  phenomenon,  solves 
every  problem,  illuminates  every  depth,  and 
renders  the  whole  mystery  of  existence  as  per- 
fectly simple  as  it  is  otherwise  perfectly  unin- 
telligible, while  itself  alone  remains  in  impene- 
trable obscurity.  After  displacing  every  other 
difficulty  it  remains  the  greatest  of  all,  in  solita- 
ry, insurmountable,  unapproachable  grandeur." 
II.  But  his  works  are  a  mystery.  Not  only 
is  his  own  nature  past  finding  out,  his  works 
partake  of  that  same  mystery.  We  find  our- 
selves placed  in  the  midst  of  material  creation 
existing  under  unnumbered  if  not  innumerable 
forms,  instinct  with  different  degrees  of  life,  or, 
if  destitute  of  all  vitality,  still  marvelously 
diverse  in  that  unvitalized  condition,  every 
stone  as  every  star  differing  from  every  other 
stone  as  well  as  star  in  glory  ;  subject  to  varied 
laws,  now  completely  controlling  them,  now 
allowing  them  some  voluntary  action  under 
general  supervision.  We  see  that  these  parti- 
cles combine  according  to  fixed  laws,  to  which 
they  are  in  their  lowest  workings  blindly  sub- 
ject ;  that,  as  they  gradually  arise  from  this 
condition,  they  become  more  and  more  imbued 
with    vitalizing,  conscious  elements,   until    at 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  VEALING  HIMSELF.     47 

last  in  man  is  revealed  a  new  power  which 
ranks  him  infinitely  above  his  fellows — ^a  power 
to  combine  and  to  separate,  to  break  old 
bonds  and  to  form  new  alliances ;  a  power  to 
reason,  to  imagine,  to  construct  out  of  spirit- 
ual elements  a  spiritual  building.  Yet  around 
all  these  material  and  spiritual  works  is  cast  a 
thick  veil.  What  is  man  ?  man  must  yet  say 
to  himself.  What  is  this  tiniest  work,  this  first 
step  in  creation,  this  molecule  or  atom  of  sci- 
ence ?  He  pauses  in  vain  for  a  reply.  If  the 
atom  answers  not,  much  less  will  its  motion,  its 
crystallization,  its  vitalization,  its  animalization 
answer.  All  nature  is  dumb.  The  sphinx  de- 
vours, but  does  not  enlighten,  her  nfan-child. 
In  a  score  or  two  of  years — a  mere  hand's 
breadth — he  is  again  of  her  dust  out  of  which 
she  formed  him,  returned  to  his  primordial  es- 
tate, to  the  original  atom,  to  his  native  dust. 
But  Nature,  even  'then,  speaks  not.  'Tis  mys- 
tery all.  How  vain  is  science !  We  may  mod- 
ify the  familiar  lines : 

"  How  vain  is  science  here  below, 
How  false,  and  yet  how  fair  !  " 

How  seductive,  how  treacherous  !  How  allur- 
ing, how  disappointing  !     It  is  not  science  ;  it 


48  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

is  a  dream  of  science.  That  means  knowledge  ; 
this  is  ignorance.  God's  omniscience  is  man's 
omnescience.  His  all-knowing  is  our  all-not- 
knowing.  Knowledge  in  part  is  real  igno- 
rance. See  how  this  cloud  thickens  about  us. 
The  mode  by  which  creation  has  been  called 
into  being  and  by  which  it  is  sustained  in  be- 
ing is  beyond  our  comprehension.  We  have 
senses  by  which  we  discern  its  existence  ;  we 
have  learned  through  some  who  advanced  be- 
yond ourselves  in  their  investigations  certain 
facts  concerning  it  and  certain  laws  governing 
it;  but  with  all  this  knowledge  we  .are  in  a 
state  of  blindness  and  darkness.  We  catch 
but  faint  glimpses  of  the  range  of  creation 
and  pierce  but  slightly  into  its  depths.  It  is 
still  to  us  clouds  and  darkness. 

How  deep,  too,  is  the  mystery  connected 
with  our  own  nature!  Our  soul — what  is  it? 
How  united  with  the  body  ?  How  do  we  think 
the  thoughts  ever  passing  through  the  brain? 
How  feel  the  feelings  ever  throbbing  in  the 
heart?  How  do  we  propel  upon  the  air  in 
speech  or  from  the  eye  in  glances  their  inward 
and  spiritual  movements  ?  How  does  this 
articulated    air    and    soulful    glance    awaken 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  V EALING  HIMSELF.     49 

thought  and  emotion  in  other  souls  through 
like  organs  of  flesh  ?  Nay,  how  acts  the  soul 
upon  itself,  in  communings,  repentings,  resolv- 
ings,  inner  and  solitary  weepings  and  rejoic- 
ings, all  this  strangest  and  deepest  of  life,  with 
which  no  stranger  can  intermeddle,  which  goes 
on  beneath  a  sleeping,  or,  if  awake,  a  calm  and 
unrevealing  exterior,  like  a  cool  sentinel  guard- 
ing at  a  gate  within  whose  palace  every  sort 
of  a  scene  is  going  forward,  festival  and  funeral, 
fightings  and  banquetings?  This  is  marvel  of 
marvels  so  far  as  concerns  the  works  of  God. 
We  sink  down  appalled  before  our  own  hidden 
selves.  We  flee  from  the  being  which  we  are. 
Thus  the  world  without  and  that  within  make 
us  tremble  as  in  the  thick  darkness.  Around 
us  roll  the  waves  of  created  life,  deeper,  wider, 
more  fearful  than  the  ocean.  Our  little  bark 
swims  on  surrounding  waters,  soon  to  be  en- 
gulfed in  their  relentless  abysses.  As  it  skims 
the  dread  surface  by  the  aid  of  the  slight  glim- 
merings of  knowledge,  it  sees  neither  the  un- 
fathomed  depths  nor  the  far-distant  shores. 

We  may  see  God,  in  his  attributes,  in  these 
regular  motions  of  his  universe.  We  may  re- 
vere his  power  and  wisdom   and   knowledge, 


50  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

but,  with  all  the  discernment  we  can  acquire, 
we  are  still  compelled  to  confess  that  clouds 
and  darkness  are  round  about  him.  Retired 
within  the  secrets  of  his  own  nature,  sur- 
rounded by  the  mysteries  of  mysteries  which 
close  up  every  avenue  of  approach,  he  issues 
his  edicts,  calls  into  being  creatures  fashioned 
with  infinite  skill,  and  leaves  them  to  wander 
forward,  forever  gaining  vast  stores  of  infor- 
mation, and  yet,  with  every  accumulation,  com- 
pelled the  more  despairingly  to  cry  out,  "  Clouds 
and  darkness  are  round  about  him"  confess- 
ing, in  prostration  of  pride  and  conceit,  that 
their  increasing  faculties  only  increase  the  con- 
sciousness of  their  own  weakness,  that  increas- 
ing light  only  causes  a  profounder  gloom  to 
gather  around  the  very  source  of  all  intelli- 
gence. The  most  undevout  astronomer,  the 
most  daring  skeptic  of  science,  the  most  defi- 
ant student  of  the  world  of  matter  apprehen- 
sible to  our  capacities,  has  to  cry  out  in  mor- 
tification of  spirit,  "  We  are  of  yesterday,  and 
know  nothing."  Lo !  these  are  but  parts  of 
his  ways ;  but  the  thunder  of  his  power  who 
can  understand  ? 

III.  He  is   mysterious    in   his  providences. 


GOD  HIDING  A  ND  RE  VEA  LING  HIMSELF.     5 1 

By  providence  is  meant  that  apparent  inter- 
ference with  the  ordinary  laws  of  nature,  not 
the  extraordinary  interposition  of  his  power, 
working  evidently  against  ordinary  laws  for  the 
confirmation  or  refutation  of  a  doctrine  or 
supposed  duty.  Such  workings  contrary  to 
natural  law  were  witnessed  in  the  miracles 
scattered  through  the  word  of  God  from  the 
days  of  Moses  to  those  of  Paul,  consummating 
themselves  in  the  deeds  of  Christ.  Such  mira- 
cles are  attestations  of  his  power  over  his  own 
works,  and  his  determination  to  make  these 
lower  forces  servants  of  his  highest  purposes, 
teachers  by  their  dumb  obedience  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  salvation.  They,  of  course,  are  far  be- 
yond all  human  investigation.  They  are  the  hid- 
denmost  exercises  of  the  will  of  God.  They  can 
probably  in  no  world  or  future  be  apprehended 
by  any  creature.  The  angels  may  forever 
vainly  endeavor  to  look  into  that  lowest  of  the 
mysteries  connected  with  the  work  of  redeem- 
ing souls — the  reversal  or  suspension  of  the 
laws  of  matter.  Miracles  are  not  subject,  and 
never  will  be,  to  the  tests  of  the  laboratory  or 
the  dialectics  of  the  disputer.  They  must  be 
rejected   with    sneering    contempt   that   only 


52  CHRISTUS  CONSOLA  TOR. 

proves  the  folly  of  the  rejecter,  or  accepted  in 
all  their  fullness  of  demand  with  a  like  fullness 
of  faith. 

But  these  exhibitions  of  God,  "  with  clouds 
and  darkness,"  are  not  among  those  regular 
disclosures  of  himself  that  wrap  us  round  with 
a  veil  of  perplexity.  If  we  consider  him  in 
the  larger  providences  that  affect  the  weal  of 
nations,  we  see  but  parts  of  his  ways.  Why 
one  people  rise  and  another  fall,  how  Greece 
shot  out  so  suddenly  into  the  front  rank  of  the 
world  and  disappeared  as  suddenly,  its  whole 
reign  not  covering  half  a  millennium  from  Achil- 
les to  Alexander,  is  a  mystery  no  student  of  that 
mighty  people  can  possibly  solve.  Gladstone 
confesses  his  ignorance.  Others  less  compe- 
tent can  wisely  confess  theirs.  Why  America 
lay  concealed  for  thousands  of  years,  only  a 
few  days'  run  from  a  continent  teeming  with 
intensest  life,  separated  by  soft  waves  and  cur- 
rents that  a  sailboat  can  traverse,  is  another 
inexplicable  mystery.  We  can  see  God  raising 
up  nations  out  of  barbarism,  allowing  them 
to  sweep  over  the  earth  in  a  torrent  of  desolat- 
ing war,  giving  them  vast  wealth  and  power, 
and  then  allowing  seeds  of  decay  to  flourish  in 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  VEALING  HIMSELF.    53 

their  system,  sap  the  foundations  of  their  gor- 
geous power,  and  leave  them  a  desolation  and 
mockery,  while  to  another  people  possessing 
superior  or  different  traits  is  given  the  reins  of 
power,  like  them  to  rise  to  a  similar,  perhaps 
superior  glory,  like  them  to  fall  to  an  equal, 
perhaps  lower  degradation. 

In  all  these  changes  has  been  seen  most 
clearly  the  hand  of  God,  the  operation  of  fixed 
laws  directed  by  his  wisdom.  Yet  even  here, 
where  nothing  Is  miraculous,  everything  is 
mysterious.  Clouds  and  darkness  hang  thick 
around  him.  We  know  not  why  he  allows 
such  misery  to  accompany  this  rise  and  fall  of 
nations ;  why  these  growths  and  decays  of  em- 
pires should  be  so  bloody.  The  forest,  the 
field,  do  not  thus  flourish  and  fade.  Why 
does  the  war-horse  trample  so  many  innocent 
beings  beneath  his  bloody  hoof?  Why  is  the 
more  hellish  passion  of  his  rider  allowed  such 
indulgence  ?  Why  do  the  terrible  scenes  in 
Bulgarian  villages  accompany  the  fall  of  one 
empire  and  the  rise  of  its  rival — babes  roasted 
alive,  men  impaled  on  stakes  about  their  com- 
pounds, women — no  word  can  describe  their 
condition,   subject  at  once  to   the  vilest  pas- 


54  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

sion  and  the  fiercest  rage  of  the  soldiery  ? 
Why  must  every  upward  step  of  humanity  be 
upon  the  fairest  flowers  of  innocence  and  love- 
liness? Why  must  we  cry  out  in  utter  horror 
inexplicable, 

'■  Tliou  matlest  life  in  man  and  brute, 
Thou  madest  death,  and  lo !  thy  foot 
Is  on  the  skull  which  thou  hast  made?" 

None  the  less  perplexed  are  we  at  the  delay 
of  the  coming  of  Christ,  the  first  as  well  as 
the  second.  Why  the  true  light  was  withheld 
for  so  many  ages  ;  why  the  government  of  the 
world  was  committed  to  nations  steeped  in 
idolatry,  ignorance,  barbarity  ;  why  for  so  many 
centuries  generation  after  generation  passed 
through  lives  of  grossest  darkness,  mental  and 
moral,  down  to  hopeless  graves,  with  scarce  a 
glimmer  of  celestial  light  to  dispel  or  even  to 
relieve  the  shadows  on  their  pathway ;  nay, 
why  death  itself  hath  passed  upon  all  men — 
babes,  and  youth,  and  maids,  and  mothers, 
and  large-hearted  sires — all  this,  to  one  who 
hath  not  Scripture  for  his  guide,  is  a  shadow 
of  shadows,  clouds  and  darkness  that  can  be 
felt. 

As  the  eye  wanders  over  the  earth  we  see  it 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  VEALING  HIMSELF.     55 

still  in  its  human  relations  much  as  it  was  ma- 
terially ere  the  Spirit  brooded  over  it,  without 
form  and  void.  Starvation  and  violence,  igno- 
rance and  impiety  thickly  cover  the  race;  why 
should  such  a  fair  planet  be  the  home  of  such  ex- 
cessive misery?  Why  should  the  soul  of  man, 
so  capable  of  producing  the  abundant  and 
glorious  fruits  of  righteousness  and  holiness, 
bear  only  thorns  and  briers  fit  but  for  cursing, 
and  ending  only  in  corruption  and  death? 
Why  should  cities  the  very  flower  of  human- 
ity, the  civilizing  centers  of  its  congrega- 
tions, be  now,  as  when  Cicero  described  the 
greatest  of  them  all  in  wealth,  luxury,  gen- 
ius, and  glory,  "  the  common  sewer  of  the 
nations?" 

We  can  only  answer,  It  is  past  finding  out. 
With  our  feeble  reason  we  may  attempt  to 
assign  motives  for  such  universal  facts,  but  our 
attempts  return  upon  our  own  heads.  We  gaze 
upon  these  elevations  and  depressions  in 
society,  this  prevailing  misery  and  this  rare 
happiness,  this  sweeping  rain  of  calamity,  now 
in  fever,  now  in  business,  laying  waste  a 
city  with  sickness  and  an  industrious  clime 
with  enforced    idleness,   bringing   bankruptcy 


56  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

to  thousands  of  employers  and  starvation  to 
tens  of  thousands  of  their  workmen,  sending 
the  mourners  in  multitudes  about  our  streets. 
As  we  gaze  hopelessly,  what  can  we  say  ?  We 
put  our  hands  upon  our  mouths  and  our 
mouths  in  the  dust.  We  are  like  poor  Othello, 
*'  perplexed  in  the  extreme."  "  He  doeth  his 
pleasure,  and  giveth  no  account  of  any  of  his 
matters." 

But  closer  yet  comes  this  mystery  of  provi- 
dence. It  sits  shrouded  at  every  hearthstone. 
It  turns  that  hearthstone  to  a  gravestone. 
"  Death  enters,  and  there  is  no  defense."  He 
takes  the  stalwart  head  from  a  sick  companion 
and  large  and  young  family.  Suddenly,  with 
a  stroke,  the  tree  falls,  and  the  vine  clinging 
to  it  and  its  tender  clusters  lie  scattered  over 
the  earth.  He  snatches  the  mother  from  her 
babes,  and  they  cry  in  vain  for  her  clasp  and 
kiss.  He  tears  the  wife  from  the  arms  of  her 
husband,  and  the  lone  man  sends  those  arms 
roaming  around  her  pillow,  crying  out  in  hope- 
less weakness, 

'•  O  that 't  were  possible, 

After  long  years  of  pain. 
To  feel  the  arms  of  my  true  lovf 

Round  me  once  again  ! " 


GOD  HIDING  A  ND  RE  V  'EA  L ING  HIMSELF.     5  7 

But  it  is  not  possible !  The  heavens  are 
blank  and  black,  earless  and  tearless.  He 
snatches  the  babe  from  the  cradle  and  leaves 
its- father  and  mother  stupefied  by  the  blow, 
but  gives  no  ointment  to  heal  or  even  mollify 
the  dreadful  wound.  He  bears  away  the 
maiden  in  the  dew  of  her  youth,  perfect  in 
love  and  loveliness,  despite  tears  and  prayers  of 
parent  or  lover,  and  lays  her  in  the  charnel 
house,  a  Juliet  of  grace  to  be  a  banquet  for 
worms.  He  strikes  down  the  youth  in  the  very 
hour  of  his  assured  triumph,  with  every  charm 
to  allure,  every  talent  to  sway,  every  quality 
of  heart  and  intellect  to  command,  with  desire 
and  ability  to  further  the  cause  of  God  and 
man.  This  moment  he  was  towering  in  manly 
splendor — and  lo  !  he  is  not ;  we  look  diligently, 
but  cannot  find  him.  So  falls  Marcellus  in  every 
age  and  people.  We  see  the  virtuous  and  dili- 
gent leveled  at  a  stroke,  while  the  vile  and  cruel 
flourish  till  the  hair  blanches  and  age  exhausts 
the  power,  but  not  the  desire,  for  wickedness. 

Such  facts,  seen  in  every  period  of  human 
history,  a  surprise  to  every  thoughtful  mind, 
only  thicken  the  gloom  that  enshrouds  the 
movements  of  God.     We  expend  our  energies 


58  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

in  vain  endeavors  to  solve  this  problem.  We 
struggle  to  catch  the  least  glimpse  of  the  mo- 
tives that  have  made  him  thus  display  his 
power.  We  charge  the  calamity  to  accident, 
or  disease,  or  lack  of  sanitary  conditions,  to 
wind  or  wave  ;  but  we  feel  that  behind  all  these 
pivotal  circumstances  is  God,  who  doeth  his 
will.  We  exclaim  in  a  cry  of  compulsory,  not 
intelligent  and  calm,  submission: 

"  In  two  days  it  steads  thee  not  to  fly  from  thy  grave 
The  appointed  and  the  unappointed  day. 

In  the  first  neither  balm  nor  physician  can  save, 
Nor  thee,  on  the  second,  the  universe  slay." 

And  then  we  fly  from  this  cry  of  fate  and  say 
it  is  not  the  universe  or  lesser  creatures  that 
kill  or  make  alive,  but  God  the  Lord,  to  whom 
the  universe  is  no  more  than  its  primal  atom. 
"  He  can  create,  and  he  destroy,"  he  only.  But 
why  he  destroys  what  he  has  pronounced  and 
we  discern  to  be  very  good  is  utterly  beyond 
the  wisest  ken.  "  He  made  darkness  his  secret 
place  ;  his  pavilion  round  about  him  were  dark 
waters  and  thick  clouds  of  the  skies." 

Such  are  some  of  the  clouds  that  engirt  the 
divine  nature  of  government.  They  inclose 
him  on  every  side.     Whether  we  seek  to  be- 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  VEALING  HIMSELF.     59 

hold  him  in  the  works  of  nature  or  of  grace  ; 
in  his  natural  attributes  or  revealed  Trinity  in 
Unity ;  in  his  creative,  sustaining,  or  destroy- 
ing power;  in  his  spiritual  or  material  kingdom 
and  government;  in  his  general  or  special  provi- 
dences— under  every  conceivable  mode  of  re- 
search or  inquiry,  to  every  observer,  he  pre- 
sents to  us  the  same  unfathomable,  impenetra- 
ble mystery. 

But  the  word  of  God  presents  an  opposite 
view.  Over  against  this  thick  darkness,  this 
darkness  which  can  be  felt,  which  is  felt, 
deeply,  ineradicably,  unspeakably  felt,  there 
ariseth  a  light,  a  light  that  not  only  dissipates 
but  engulfs  the  gloom.  The  very  psalm  that 
contains  this  dreary  truth  cheeringly  declares 
that  light  is  sown  for  the  righteous,  and  glad- 
ness, the  result  of  light,  for  the  upright  in 
heart.  John,  the  revealer  in  so  many  ways  of 
divine  truth,  not  alone  in  apocalyptic  splendors 
and  terms,  but  in  the  life,  nature,  and  fellow- 
ship of  Christ,  cries  out  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
**  God  is  light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at 
all." 

Can  this  be  true  ?  Can  the  same  God  be  in 
darkness  and  be  lisrht  ?     Can  clouds  and  dark- 


60  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

ness  be  round  about  him  and  yet  his  nature  be 
perfect  and  perpetual  light  ?  It  is  true,  though 
only  the  Bible,  of  all  books,  and  Christianity,  of 
all  faiths,  has  ever  detected  the  truth.  To  all 
other  creeds  he  is  darkness — Greek,  Egyptian, 
Buddhistic,  Brahman,  Mohammedan.  He  is 
darkness.  Jove  smiles  not  when  he  strikes  ex- 
cept as  hatred  smiles  when  indulged.  Zeus 
wounds  not  to  heal.  Mohammedanism  cries, 
"God  is  great,"  and  inscribes  this  innumerable 
times  over  every  hall  and  mosque  in  marble 
letters,  but  never  writes,  "  God  is  good."  Quin- 
tilian  exclaims  over  the  dead  body  of  his  son, 
"  Curse  the  gods !  "  and  exclaims  wisely  after 
the  best  human  knowledge.  In  nature,  in 
providence,  he  is  to  be  feared,  not  loved. 
Adam  followed  the  universal  sinful  instinct 
when  he  heard  the  voice  of  God  and  hid  him- 
self, for  he  was  affrighted.  Well  he  might  be! 
That  fear  has  taken  hold  of  all  his  children.  It 
is  the  first  disease  they  received  from  their  first 
father.  God  is  an  object  of  dread  and  dislike — 
of  dislike  because  of  dread.  How  can  he  then 
be  light  and  love  and  joy  and  peace?  How 
can  the  child  of  Adam  cry  out,  "  My  heart 
longeth  for  the  courts  of  the  Lord  ;  "  "  Whom 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  V EALING  HIMSELF.     61 

have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee  ?  "  How  can  he 
say,  "  I  am  sick  of  love  for  my  God  ?  " 

"  O  would  He  more  of  heaven  bestow, 

And  let  the  vessels  break. 
And  let  my  ransomed  spirit  go 

To  grasp  the  God  I  seek." 

How  ?  By  and  through  the  word  and  grace 
of  God.  In  the  Scriptures  it  is  written,  in  the 
ransomed  heart  it  is  felt,  by  the  renewed  eye 
it  is  seen — in  and  by  these  only.  The  same 
Being  guided  the  Israelites  by  a  pillar  of  cloud 
and  a  pillar  of  fire.  He  gathers  clouds  around 
him,  and  yet  reveals  himself  through  them. 
He  is  light  to  the  eye  of  faith,  though  that 
of  speculation  and  mere  curiosity  is  blinded 
by  the  depths  of  darkness  enshrouding  him. 
He  drives  away  the  clouds  that  impede  our 
spiritual  vision  while  still  veiled  in  providence 
in  an  awful  mystery.  This  is  not  an  assumed 
but  a  necessary  concealment.  It  arises  from 
his  infinitude  and  our  sinfulness.  If  we  were 
sinless,  still  he  would  be  mysterious.  Even  the 
angels  vainly  desire  to  look  into  the  dark  mys- 
tery of  redemption.  Infinity  is  dark  to  fini- 
tude.  What  delegated  power,  if  it  were  ever 
so   mighty,    could   vie    with   that    which    was 


62  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

almighty  ?  What  degree  of  created  wisdom 
could  explore  the  depths  of  the  uncreated  ? 
What  acquisitions  of  study  could  collect  a 
store  equal  or  comparable  to  the  accumula- 
tions of  infinite  knowledge  ?  From  necessity, 
therefore,  does  he  hide  himself  from  his  crea- 
tures, whether  in  heaven  or  on  the  earth.  If 
he  could  entirely  reveal  himself,  then  were 
they  not  creatures,  or  he  not  God. 

But  though  thus  clothed  to  all  eternity  in 
infinite  darkness;  though  concealed,  as  must 
be,  all  his  purposes  for  the  future  and  all  the 
reasons  for  his  present  acts,  unless  he  espe- 
cially choose  to  declare  them,  still  he  may 
be  all  light.  The  soul  upon  which  his  grace 
has  acted,  which  has  been  upraised  from 
nature's  darkness  into  his  marvelous  light, 
sees  his  steps,  his  face,  even  in  the  paths  of 
pain  in  which  he  may  be  compelled  to  walk. 
Though  incapable  of  fathoming  the  mysteries 
which  always  surround  him,  still  he  is  capable 
of  perceiving  in  the  workings  of  creation  and 
even  of  providence,  as  illumined  by  grace,  the 
power,  the  skill,  and  the  benevolence  of  God. 
He  can  see  in  his  works  the  proofs  of  his  divin- 
ity ;  in  his  being  the  harmonious  necessities 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  V EALING  HIMSELF.     63 

of  infinite  creatorship,  the  eternally  invisible 
Father,  the  manifesting  Son,  his  express  image 
and  glory,  the  Holy  Ghost,  illuminator,  re- 
prover, sanctifier,  comforter.  He  can  see  in 
the  spiritual  world  the  same  divine  goodness 
and  wisdom,  the  same  exquisite  adaptation  of 
the  external  to  the  internal,  of  matter  to  mind, 
of  mind  to  matter.  And  so  wherever  he  fixes 
his  gaze  he  finds  God  is  light,  and  in  him  is  no 
darkness  at  all. 

Even  the  bereavements  which  come  like  the 
blight  of  eternal  death  over  the  circle  of 
friends  and  kindred,  which  fall  like  a  pall  on 
society,  though  veiled  in  thickest  dark,  to  the 
humble  and  believing  bring  into  clearer  light 
our  dependence  on  God  and  the  sufficiency 
there  is  in  him  to  accomplish  all  his  matters, 
through  any  instrument  he  may  raise,  and  even 
if  every  instrument  so  raised  up  is  seemingly 
violently  wrested  from  his  hand.  It  is  not  so 
wrested.  He  created  it,  he  removes  it  ;  he 
abides.  That  babe,  expected  to  be  the  support 
of  its  parents,  crumbles  back  to  the  nothing- 
ness out  of  which  it  so  lately  came ;  but  God 
crumbles  not.  That  youth  and  maid,  fair  to 
see,  disappear  as  soon  as  seen,  and  leave  the 


64  CI/K/STUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

bewildered  circle  desolate  and  doubtful.  But 
He  who  is  eternally  strong  and  fair,  the  chief- 
est  in  lordly  vigor  among  ten  thousand,  and 
the  one  and  the  only  one  altogether  lovely, 
he  fails  not  and  fades  not.  He  is  the  glory 
and  the  beauty,  pure  and  perfect,  forever  and 
forever.  That  mother  torn  from  her  babes, 
that  father  from  the  mother  and  the  little 
ones,  who  can  solve  the  riddle  ?  No  Samson 
strong  enough  to  wrestle  with  that  problem  ; 
no  Solomon  wise  enough  to  guess  that  secret. 
But  do  we  not  see  light  in  His  light  who  is 
Light  ?  Does  he  not  thereby  teach  the  family 
smitten  of  God  and  afflicted  that  he  is  ten- 
derer than  mother,  stronger  than  father,  potent 
in  love,  and  will  not  suffer  even  these  afflic- 
tions to  be  above  what  they  are  able  to  bear ; 
nay,  will  bear  them  all  himself,  and  come  the 
nearer  to  them  the  farther  he  removes  lover 
and  friend  from  them  ?  Only  such  darkness 
can  bring  forth  such  light.  Only  then  can  the 
Comforter  come  when  the  Christ  is  gone. 
Only  can  the  Pentecostal  glory  break  upon  the 
crucifixion  gloom.  Only  can  the  shinings  of 
salvation  appear  after  the  rains  of  penitential 
sorrow. 


GOD  HIDING  AND  REVEALING  HIMSELF.     65 

But  though  to  the  Christian  there  may  be  a 
great  Hght  shed  upon  the  character  and  con- 
cerns of  God ;  though  his  believing  soul  may- 
trust  where  it  cannot  examine  and  rest  where 
it  cannot  see,  and  see,  even,  where  all  other 
eyes  fail,  still  throughout  eternity  there  will  be 
a  gradual  unfolding  of  the  truths  which  must 
now  be  received  by  faith.  There  will  be  a  con- 
stant source  of  activity  and  delight  in  remov- 
ing barrier  after  barrier  in  its  onward  course, 
in  dispersing  shadow  upon  shadow  that  had 
hung  around  the  divine  nature  and  working. 
Lessing's  preference  will  then  be  more  than 
fulfilled :  "  If  I  had  truth  offered  me  in  one 
hand  and  search  for  it  in  the  other,  I  would 
accept  the  latter."  We  shall  have  both  the 
truth  and  the  search  for  it.  Not  like  the 
blinded  seekers  who  refuse  to  accept  the  first 
principles  of  real  science,  the  fear  of  God  and 
faith  in  Christ,  and  who  are,  therefore,  as  was 
poor  Lessing  himself  too  often,  ever  seeking 
and  never  able  to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth,  but,  like  the  angels,  searching,  and  grow- 
ing in  the  search  into  the  knowledge  of  the 
deep  things  of  God,  increasing  in  light  and 
still  allured  by  increasing  mystery,  God  ever 


66  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

more  near  and  ever  the  more  hiding  himself, 
all  light  and  still  all  darkness. 

But  then  as  now,  here  as  there,  we  may  see 
light  in  his  light.  If  he  by  necessity  of  being 
hides  himself  from  us  as  Creator,  he  reveals  him- 
self as  Saviour.  He  floods  the  soul  with  such 
heavenly  light  that  all  natural  darkness  flees 
away.  All  errors  in  doctrine  and  practice  ap- 
pear in  their  true  deformity  and  then  disappear 
from  the  soul  they  have  possessed,  like  the 
demons  that  revealed  their  demonism  and  then 
fled  to  their  own,  the  outer  darkness.  In  the 
center  of  that  redeeming,  new  creating  glory  he 
will  abide  forever. 

Has  this  light  ever  arisen  upon  you  ?  Has 
God  been  seen  by  you  in  the  supreme  glory  and 
beauty  of  the  cross?  Has  the  darkness  which 
shrouded  the  earth  and  thickened  around  him 
as  he  hung  upon  that  tree  of  agony  and  dis- 
grace ever  been  scattered  in  your  souls  by  the 
light  which  burst  from  hissepulcher  and  which 
sat  in  fiery  tongues  on  the  heads  of  his  disci- 
ples ?  Or  do  you  yet  abide  in  the  spiritual 
darkness,  enjoying  no  light  from  his  presence, 
seeing  not  how  nature  and  providence  in  this 
light  appear  to  flow  in  their  proper  relations, 


GOD  HIDING  AND  RE  V EALING  HIMSELF.     67 

or  assured  that  what  you  fail  to  know  now  ye 
shall  know  hereafter  ? 

If  this  gloom  still  surrounds  your  soul,  if  in 
addition  to  that  which  must  constantly  conceal 
our  Maker  is  added  that  which  arises  from  an 
unrepentant  and  unfilial  heart,  a  depravity 
of  inheritance  and  cultivation,  of  strength  and 
desire,  remember  that  this  unnatural  though 
unfortunately  most  natural  darkness  must  be 
perpetual  unless  speedily  removed  by  faith  in 
the  blood  of  Christ.  Never  through  all  the 
boundless  waste  of  ages  will  arrive  the  moment 
when  the  cloud  will  depart,  but,  growing  deeper 
and  deeper,  it  will  enshroud  the  soul  in  its  ter- 
rible, its  everlasting  blackness  and  darkness. 
What  God  is  not,  that  soul  will  be  ;  what  God  is, 
that  soul  will  never  be.  Clouds  and  darkness  are 
round  about  him,  but  he  is  light.  The  willful, 
choiceful  sinner  will  be  clouds  and  darkness, 
never,  never,  never  the  light.  He  shall  go 
away  into  the  outer  darkness — go  never  to  re- 
turn ;  go  darker  than  its  uttermost  dark ;  go 
never  to  see  or  feel  again  an  illuminating  ray. 
The  blindest  eye  detects  the  difference  between 
day  and  night,  but  there  is  no  difference  there, 
for  there  is  no  day  there,  only  night  and  night 


68  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

forever — night  in  the  soul,  night  without,  night 
in  the  passions  that  rush  constantly  hellward, 
in  the  reason  that  studies  how  to  prove  the 
worse  the  better,  in  every  faculty  still  left, 
still  conscious,  still  active.  The  flashes  of 
the  fires  which  tried  that  darkness  only  make 
it  the  more  dark.  Byron's  dream  is  only  a 
faint  conception  of  that  state  where  sun  and 
moon  are  orbs  of  blackness  and  every  flame 
intensifies  the  gloom. 

Hasten  to  escape  the  possibility  of  such  a 
state,  hasten  to  secure  the  glories  of  the  oppo- 
site condition  !  There  shall  be  no  night  there. 
They  need  no  candle,  nor  the  light  of  the 
sun,  for  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof  Every 
ray  flows  from  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  the 
sun  obscured  in  sacrifice,  shining  in  arising  and 
ascending  glory.  Let  desire  for  that  estate 
fill  your  soul  with  shrinkings  from  the  horrors 
of  that  darkness,  with  longings  for  the  glories 
of  that  light.  From  the  bright  cloud  that 
overshadowed  the  Saviour  fell  a  voice  pro- 
claiming him  to  be  God's  beloved  Son.  From 
the  bright  cloud  of  the  same  divine  presence 
and  glory  let  the  same  voice  assure  you  of  the 
same  truth^-a  son,  an   heir,  a  joint-heir  with 


GOD  HIDING  AND  REVEALING  HIMSELF.     69 

Jesus  Christ,  to  the  glory  which  he  had  with 
the  Father  before  the  world  was.  Then  will 
the  clouds  which  now  are  around  about  him 
brighten  with  the  inner  glory  with  which  he 
will  irradiate  them.  As  the  upheaved  masses 
which  conceal  the  everliving  sun  are  set  on  fire 
by  the  very  beams  they  would  conceal,  and 
tint  the  heavens  with  every  hue  in  the  mag- 
nificent radiance  coming  from  the  light  within, 
so  shall  every  thundercloud  of  wrath,  every 
heavy  cloud  of  sorrow,  the  wide  void  and 
waste  of  the  still  unknown,  be  filled  with  the 
shinings  of  God  within.  Unlike  the  natural 
sun  whose  atmosphere  of  light  covers  an  earth 
of  opacity  as  lusterless  as  our  own,  the  inner- 
most is  light,  the  outer  only  obscure.  But  the 
soul  at  one  with  Christ  is  in  the  center  of  the 
innermost,  and  the  atmospheres  of  providence, 
grace,  and  nature,  yea,  even  of  being  itself,  shall 
shine  in  the  glory  of  God,  author  at  once  of 
nature,  providence,  and  grace  ;  yea,  of  his  own 
being  also. 

This  light  has  been  discerned  by  poet  and 
philosopher  when  illumined  by  Christian  faith. 
Dante's  visions  of  the  Celestial  Hill  were  the 
very  essence,  the  fifth  or  quintessence,  essence 


70  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

of  essence  of  essence  of  essence  of  essence  of 
Light,  a  realm  of  soul  purity  and  power  as  only 
an  eye  and  tongue  of  highest  Christian  train- 
ing could  have  seen  and  sang.  Paul  saw  it  by 
faith  and  by  sight  when  caught  up  in  that 
seventh  heaven,  an  essence  of  twice  the  power 
of  his  follower  Dante,  not  seen  but  experienced, 
a  glory  that  was  unspeakable,  that  no  mortal 
man  might  approach  unless  first  dipped  in  im- 
mortality, a  glory  that  he  perpetually  longed 
to  again  and  forever  enjoy.  John  gazed  upon 
it,  dwelt  in  it,  was  filled  with  it,  and  fills  with 
it  every  verse  of  his  Scriptures,  whether  of 
biography,  letter,  or  vision.  Every  Christian 
shall  enter  it.  Multitudes  upon  multitudes 
have  entered  it — the  realm  of  light  and  love,  of 
light  because  of  love  and  love  in  light — and  into 
it  shall  all  the  multitudes  of  the  believers  and 
faithful  enter,  there  to  abide  and  to  grow,  see- 
ing ever,  even  there,  clouds  and  darkness  round 
about  the  divine  center,  seeing  still  more 
clearly  in  his  ceaseless  outgoings  that  "  God  is 
light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all." 

May  we  be  comforted  and  strengthened  in 
every  hour  of  gloom  by  this  clear  shining  of  the 
Face  Divine ! 


"  For  the   fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away." — I   Cor. 
vii,  31. 

"  This  life,  which  seems  so  fair, 

Is  like  a  bubble  blown  up  in  the  air 

By  sporting  children's  breath, 

Who  chase  it  everywhere, 

And  strive  who  can  most  motion  it  bequeath. 

And  though  it  sometimes  seem  of  its  own  weight 

Like  to  an  eye  of  gold  to  be  fixed  there, 

And  calm  to  hover  in  that  empty  height. 

That  only  is  because  it  is  so  light  ; 

But  in  that  pomp  it  doth  not  long  appear. 

But  when  'tis  most  admired,  in  a  thought. 

Because  it  erst  was  naught,  it  turns  to  naught." 


III. 

THE    WORLD    VANISHING. 

"X  T  7"E  are  naturally  led  to  believe  that  the 
^  •  objects  which  meet  our  gaze,  the  cus- 
toms and  laws  of  society  under  which  we  have 
been  educated,  are  necessarily  permanent. 
We  see  no  change  or  decay  in  star  or  earth, 
in  man  or  nature.  They  present  to  the  eye 
of  age  the  same  features  that  they  did  to  him 
in  youth.  They  may  be  slightly  modified  in 
minor  points,  but  they  are  substantially  unal- 
tered. The  same  scenes  in  nature  appear, 
slightly  varied,  perhaps,  by  movements  of 
population.  The  same  code  of  laws  rule, 
changed  a  little  in  minor  restrictions  or  liber- 
ality. The  same  habits  control  the  daily  life 
of  the  people,  scarcely  affected  by  increasing 
knowledge  and  wealth. 

A  sudden  outbreak,  a  civil  volcano,  some- 
times bursts  through  the  level  surface  of  so- 
ciety, overturning  all  its  institutions  and  intro- 
ducing a  new  chaos,  out  of  which  may  arise  a 
new  and  more  perfect  cosmos.    Such  eruptions 


74  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

may  disturb  the  quiet  belief  in  the  unchange- 
ableness  of  this  world.  We  may  exclaim  against 
the  declaration  of  the  text,  "  See  the  English, 
the  American,  the  French  Revolution  ;  see  Na- 
poleon and  our  civil  war.  Do  not  these  disturb, 
if  not  destroy,  the  declaration  that  all  things 
continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning?" 

Look  a  little  closer,  and  they  will  be  seen  to 
have  scarcely  affected  the  steady  currents  of 
the  world.  The  surface  is  tossed,  the  depths 
remain  unmoved.  The  volcano  does  not  dis- 
turb the  center  of  the  earth  with  its  fires  or 
fury.  Only  the  crust  is  broken.  So  these 
social  storms  and  earthquakes,  that  sweep  over, 
heave,  and  even  break  up  the  surface  of  so- 
ciety, leave  untouched  the  principles  and  prac- 
tices on  which  it  is  founded.  The  Parisians 
have  a  saying  that  no  revolution  disturbs  the 
omnibus  drivers.  So  no  revolution  disturbs 
the  immense  current  of  feeling  and  action  on 
which  flows  the  stream  of  humanity.  That 
stream  is  steadier  than  the  Homeric  ocean 
that  rolled  around  the  earth,  steadier  than  the 
courses  of  the  stars,  steadier  than  life  itself. 
From  observing  it  alone  we  cannot  say  the 
fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away. 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  75 

Our  experience  gives  us  no  proof  of  this 
change  ;  and,  though  history  might  teach  the 
truth,  yet  we  fail  to  be  conscious  of  it  because 
it  is  not  a  matter  of  personal  experience. 
"All  men  think  all  men  mortal  but  them- 
selves," and  that  because  it  is  impossible  to 
conceive  of  death  as  a  personal  and  conscious 
experience.  Not  only  of  the  child,  but  of  the 
decrepit  centenarian,  who  has  seen  thousands 
die,  must  we  say,  "  What  can  he  know  of 
death  ?  "  He  feels  his  life  in  every  limb,  feebly, 
perhaps,  paralytically  almost,  but  it  is  life  ;  and 
death  and  life  have  nothing  in  common.  They 
are  incapable  of  being  compared,  contrasted, 
or  submitted  in  any  shape  or  degree  to  a  com- 
mon examination.  Even  when  forced  by  ob- 
servation of  history  to  concede  that  other  na- 
tions and  ages  have  been  compelled  to  submit 
to  death,  we  quickly  frame  some  excuse  for 
our  own  state  and  time  which  shall  except 
them  from  the  general  doom.  We  find  in  us 
some  germ  of  immortality  that  shall  perpetu- 
ate our  nationality.  Without  doubt  we  con- 
fess the  inhabitants  of  Nineveh,  Troy,  Tyre, 
Thebes,  or  other  mighty  cities  that  arose, 
flourished,  and  fell,  indulged  in  the  same  views 


76  CIIRISrUS  CONSOLATOR. 

while  contemplating  the  glory  and  seeming 
durability  of  their  monuments.  They  might 
each  have  said,  as  did  Macaulay  of  St.  Paul's, 
that  the  far-off  barbarian,  blooming  in  his 
civilization,  shall  sketch  their  ruins  ;  but  they 
would  no  more  have  believed  that  this  would 
happen  than  he  believed  it  of  his  favorite  Lon- 
don. The  courtiers  that  fluttered  around  the 
throne  of  Babylon  could  not  have  been  made 
to  believe  the  declaration  of  Isaiah,  even  if 
they  had  heard  it  from  his  own  lips  and  be- 
lieved it  to  have  been  the  word  of  God,  that 
the  time  should  come  when  not  only  the 
pompous  palaces  that  graced  the  city,  not  only 
the  stately  gardens,  the  greatest  height  yet 
to  which  art  and  wealth  have  ever  vied  with 
nature,  not  only  the  language  which  they  used 
to  express  their  flatteries  and  adoration  of  the 
throne,  not  only  the  laws  that  governed  court 
and  state,  should  disappear,  but  even  the  most 
common  dwellings,  the  rudest,  and,  therefore, 
strongest  habits,  should  be  swept  away  by  the 
same  desolating  wave,  and  scarce  a  vestige  be 
left  by  which  even  the  site  of  their  strength 
and  splendor  could  be  discerned. 

The  Greek  who  hung  enraptured  on  the  lips 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  77 

of  Pericles,  or  leaped  in  enthusiasm  at  the 
summons  of  Demosthenes,  or  walked  in  proud 
procession  from  Athens  to  the  gorgeous  temple 
of  Delphos,  or  mingled  as  spectator  or  actor 
in  the  Olympian  games,  or  gazed  uplifted  on 
the  splendors  of  the  Parthenon,  fresh  and  spark- 
ing in  its  marble,  ivory,  and  gold — how  he  would 
have  resented  as  a  gross  insult  to  his  race  the 
assertion  that  the  time  would  come  when  no 
multitude  nor  orator  would  inflame  the  bema, 
no  procession  would  move  from  city  to  shrine, 
no  shrine  or  city  would  exist.  Nay,  when  the 
city  of  Delphos  should  itself  be  a  matter  of 
dispute,  and  its  deity  should  have  been  for 
ages  uncrowned  and  contemned ;  when  even 
the  city  itself,  its  cloud-capped  towers  and 
gorgeous  palaces  and  solemn  temples,  should 
have  disappeared  as  a  dream  when  one  awaketh, 
and  only  a  few  stained  pillars  and  rock-hewn 
steps  should  survive  to  mark  its  tomb.  The 
Roman  who  trod  in  just  pride  the  forum  and 
the  Via  Sacra,  who  sat  in  the  Coliseum  and 
gazed  on  the  splendors  of  Caesar's  palaces,  who 
wandered  amid  groves  and  well-nigh  forests  of 
statuary  in  the  Circus  Maximus,  and  every- 
where did  not  so  much  dream  as  realize  uni- 


75  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

versal  dominion — had  he  been  told  in  the  cul- 
mination of  that  sovereignty  that  that  do- 
minion to  which  he  declared  the  gods  had  set 
no  bounds,  either  of  time  or  space,  should 
utterly  and  forever  disappear ;  that  even  his  own 
city  should  be  whelmed  helplessly  beneath  suc- 
cessive waves  of  barbarism  ;  that  the  forest  of 
statues  should  be  leveled  and  only  here  and 
there  a  trunk,  a  torso,  escape  to  tell  the  marvel 
of  its  glory ;  that  the  wondrous  palace  of  all  the 
Caesars  should  be  a  rubbish  heap,  deep  into 
which  the  explorer  must  delve  if  he  would  find 
any  trace  of  its  existence ;  that  the  very  Col- 
iseum should  be  rent  in  twain  from  the  top  to 
the  bottom,  and  stand  a  broken  ruin,  with 
weeds  for  seats,  and  jackals  for  emperors  and 
senate  and  assembly — how  would  his  soul  have 
sprung  to  arms  at  such  an  imputation  !  How 
confidently  would  he  have  appealed  to  its  long 
and  lengthening  history,  to  its  mighty  arms, 
its  controlling  laws,  its  wide-spreading  lan- 
guage, its  men  whose  very  nam.es  sounded  solid 
and  enduring,  and  affirmed  that  such  prophecy 
was  fable  !  For  a  thousand  years  it  had  ruled 
the  world  ;  whence  was  to  come  its  downfall  ? 
-    In  such  reflections  the  self-satisfied  citizen 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  79 

of  these  mighty  nations  would  naturally,  could 
reasonably,  indulge.  Yet  they  have  passed 
away.  So  may  our  expectations  be  a  delusion, 
our  land  again  be  a  desolation.  The  fashion 
of  this  world  passeth  away. 

The  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away  in 
respect  to  its  opinions  and  usages.  The  views 
which  are  current  at  present  are  vastly  differ- 
ent from  those  which  have  prevailed  in  other 
ages.  We  may  see  but  slight  differences  if  we 
compare  it  with  the  preceding  age,  though 
even  here  marked  differences  can  be  discerned. 
But  if  we  look  over  longer  spaces  of  time,  the 
distinctions  are  more  clearly  defined. 

Note  the  changes  in  European  thought  and 
life  since  these  words  were  first  written.  The 
doctrine  of  universal  individual  freedom,  body, 
soul,  or  spirit,  was  utterly  unknown — we  might 
say  utterly  inconceivable — in  that  age,  and  for 
centuries,  almost  millenniums,  later.  It  may 
have  existed  in  the  savage  state,  though 
then  only  to  those  who  had  might  out  of 
which  to  make  their  own  right ;  universal  equal 
right  was  a  thing  unknown.  The  individual 
was  merged  in  the  state,  and  the  state  in  the 
sovereign,  and  the  sovereign  was  God.     The 


80  CHRIST  US  CONSOLATOR. 

lower  orders,  the  masses  and  multitudes,  were 
only  the  broad  base  for  this  human  pyramid. 
The  apex  was  man  and  also  God. 

Where  was  there  room  for  personal  con- 
scious liberty  in  such  a  system  ?  It  could  not 
have  been  allowed  for  an  instant  any  more  than 
the  solid  pyramid  of  Ghizeh,  the  greatest  mar- 
vel on  the  earth,  could  allow  the  tiniest  stone 
in  its  mighty  mass  to  be  endowed  with  inalien- 
able rights  as  to  its  own  volitions.  The  inde- 
structible pile  would  instantly  crumble  and  dis- 
appear. So  man  was  lost  in  state,  and  serf  or 
citizen  was  a  volitionless  unit  of  a  compact  if 
not  crystallized  mass. 

Then  closed  around  this  pyramidal  human- 
ity the  thick  darkness  of  barbarism.  The  for- 
mer fashion  of  personal  liberty  to  at  least  a 
favored  few,  and  experienced  by  the  New  Tes- 
tament believer,  gave  way  to  universal  belief 
that  the  only  way  to  be  man,  to  please  God, 
or  win  immortality,  was  to  yield  minds  and 
souls  into  the  power  of  priests,  wills  and  bodies 
into  that  of  kings.  How  deep,  how  dreadful, 
that  darkness !  It  makes  one  shudder  as  he 
looks  back  upon  it  to  this  day. 

But    this   fashion   has   passed    away.     The 


THE  IVOKLD  VANISHING.  81 

faculties  which  are  the  property  of  each  soul, 
which  cannot  be  severed  from  it  by  any 
consent  even  of  itself,  or  by  any  tyranny  of 
others,  which  may  sleep  but  cannot  be  para- 
lyzed, which  leap  up  in  every  child  and  must 
be  suppressed  in  every  generation,  asserted 
themselves  at  last,  violently,  fiercely,  murder- 
ously. They  were  suppressed  with  greater 
violence  and  murder;  but  oppression  cannot 
always  reign.  These  faculties  asserted  their 
right  to  be  and  to  become.  In  the  Reforma- 
tion, both  before  and  after  Luther,  this  asser- 
tion took  form  and  power.  These  faculties 
were  at  first  puny  with  lack  of  exercise,  but 
strong  with  inward  vitality.  The  heart  but 
dimly  perceived  the  rights  God  had  given  it, 
and  more  dimly  the  way  in  which  it  should 
walk  to  make  those  rights  victorious. 

The  doctrine  of  individual  freedom,  in  its 
resurrection,  saw  around  it  hostile  opinions 
throned  in  wealth,  power,  dignity,  antiquity, 
culture,  and  religion.  How  could  it  dare  to 
thrust  its  own  impulses  against  such  leagued 
and  lofty  foes?  How  could  it  fail  of  falling 
into  doubt  sometimes  concerning  the  rightful- 
ness of  its  own  suggestions?      How  could  it 


82  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

fail  of  trembling  in  engaging,  unaided  by  any 
visible  powers,  in  so  fearful  a  contest  ? 

It  took  ages  for  this  sentiment  to  gain  any 
foothold  in  society,  and  still  longer  periods  for 
it  to  become  sovereign.  Yet  the  fashion  has 
prevailed.  The  former  sentiment  has  passed 
away,  and  with  it  legions  of  the  false  views 
concerning  government  and  religion  which 
supported  it  and  were  supported  by  it.  The 
truth  so  long  crushed  to  earth  gradually  arose 
in  every  heart,  until  the  superincumbent  load 
of  tyranny  in  Church  and  State  was  tossed 
from  it,  and  it  stood  forth  in  its  own  fair  and 
winning  proportions. 

Yet  even  this  fashion  must,  in  a  degree,  pass 
away.  The  tendency  to  rush  from  one  ex- 
treme to  the  other,  from  slavish  reverence  to 
lawless  infidelity,  renders  a  counterchange 
partly  necessary.  The  fashion  now  prevailing 
of  disuniting  all  thoughts  of  God  from  life  and 
law,  of  casting  religion  entirely  out  of  the 
pale  of  civil  action,  of  expelling  Christ  not  only 
formally,  but  actually,  from  the  Constitution,  or 
rejecting  the  word  of  God  as  either  inspired 
or  authoritative,  or  even  to  be  casually  read 
in  a  state  school — all  this  supersecularization, 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  83 

this  elevation  of  man  above  his  Creator,  and 
abolishing  of  God  from  humanity,  must  itself 
pass  away.  It  is  a  dream  as  vicious  as  its 
counterpart.  In  the  one  a  single  Caesar  is 
God,  in  the  other  all  men  as  one  are  God.  No 
Caesar,  whether  one  or  many,  can  be  God. 
We  must  bow  to  God,  not  man  ;  to  Christ, 
not  Caesar.  We  must  acknowledge  that  to  him, 
and  in  him,  and  for  him,  and  by  him  are  all 
of  us  and  ours,  now  and  eternally.  Then  and 
thus  will  we  conform  to  the  fashion  that 
abideth  forever. 

The  experience  of  every  one  proves  this 
mutability.  The  feelings  that  affected  us  in 
childhood,  the  objects  that  fascinated,  the 
hopes  we  cherished,  the  pursuits  we  followed, 
have  all  disappeared  or  become  so  changed  as 
to  lose  all  their  power.  The  fashion  of  child- 
hood passeth  away.  No  longer  does  mere 
bodily  exercise  delight  us,  nor  now  do  we 
exult  in  winning  some  childish  game.  We  do 
not  cry  for  vexation  when  deprived  of  some 
desired  object.  We  have  put  away  childish 
things. 

The  more  lofty  ambition  that  seizes  on  the 
youthful  heart,  the   love   of  excitement    and 


84  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

novelty  which  hurries  him  to  the  scenes  of  dan- 
ger and  pursuits  that  feed  these  passions,  that 
make  him  a  soldier,  a  sailor,  a  traveler ;  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  he  plunges  into  busi- 
ness or  politics — all  these  traits,  manly  and 
noble  though  they  be,  must  pass  away.  They 
are  of  a  fleeting  fashion.  The  intoxication 
with  which  the  world  of  pleasure  bewilders 
him  will  desert  him.  He  passes  into  man- 
hood with  his  fiery  nature  settling  down  into 
granitic  habits,  good  or  evil,  his  lava  flow 
cooling  into  shape  and  strength.  Here  a  new 
fashion  controls  him.  He  casts  aside  the 
vanity  which  delighted  in  tricky  display,  the 
hungering  and  thirsting  after  novel  scenes  and 
circumstances,  the  passions  that  crave  strong 
and  poisoned  fiction  to  feed  their  flame,  and, 
unless  resisted,  the  stronger  and  more  poison- 
ous fact  to  increase  the  burnings  and  consume 
both  body  and  soul.  These  all  disappear,  and 
soberer  views  and  hopes  address  us — soberer 
but  not  weaker.  Now  comes  the  fashion  of 
regularity;  now  duty  is  easy  and  even  agree- 
able ;  now  the  familiar  is  the  more  fascinating  ; 
now  wife  and  child,  husband  and  home,  grow 
intensely  deep  and  tender.      We   prefer    the 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  85 

quiet  joys  of  domestic  life  to  the  rude  pleasures 
of  the  outer  world.  Books  are  our  companions, 
systematic  thought  delightful.  Each  day,  as  its 
forerunner,  a  slight  advance  in  the  same  path 
is  all  that  is  sought.  Life  is  less  brilliant,  but 
more  true.  We  have  plucked  the  heart  of  the 
mystery,  we  think,  that  so  dazzled  and  drew  us 
in  our  childhood  and  youth.  Have  we?  Shall 
not  this  fashion  pass  away?  If  of  this  world 
it  will — it  must. 

Nay,  alas  !  even  as  we  look  and  love  and 
tread,  as  we  hope,  an  eternal  round  of  pleasur- 
able peace,  a  change  passeth  over  it  and  it  is 
gone.  Those  parents  so  clung  to  now,  because 
so  much  more  appreciated  ;  those  children  lying 
in  the  lap  of  motherhood,  graceful  or  strong 
with  youthful  charms  ;  that  companion  lovely 
beyond  compare,  glorious  in  his  strength — ■ 
alas !  alas  !  "  they  pass  downward  to  the  place 
of  common  sleep."  This  fashion  of  home  and 
heart  life  vanisheth  away. 

Even  this  center  of  our  life,  this  summit,  as 
we  fancy,  of  our  being,  changes.  Ripening 
age  has  a  fashion  of  its  own.  The  sturdy  race 
for  wealth  or  honors  yields  to  placid  accept- 
ance   of    fate.     The   grasshopper   becomes   a 


86  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

burden ;  desire  fails  ;  an  intense  love  of  rest 
takes  the  place  of  an  intense  love  of  excite- 
ment ;  a  constant  contemplation  of  the  great 
change  steadily  approaching  replaces  a  com- 
plete indifference  to  it ;  even  a  loathing  of 
novelty  governs  where  a  loathing  of  rest  long 
ruled.  The  nature  is  reversed.  A  complete 
transformation  is  effected.  We  hate  naturally 
the  things  we  once  loved,  and  love  what  we 
once  hated.  We  turn  our  vision  backward, 
which  once  only  looked  forward.  We  dwell  in 
memory,  not  hope.  The  natural  man,  the 
fashion  of  this  world,  sees  no  hope  beyond 
this  life.  He  is  shut  up  to  the  body  and  to 
time,  and  as  the  body  now  ceases  to  impel 
him  to  new  ventures  he  subsides  into  indiffer- 
ence, a  calm  not  of  activity,  as  in  manhood's 
prime,  but  of  repose,  until  at  last  his  earthly 
house  crumbles  and  he  sinks  into  the  grave. 

How  strikingly  does  it  appear  in  respect  to 
ourselves  no  less  than  mankind  that  the  fashion 
of  this  world  passeth  away  ! 

Why  do  these  changes  attend  all  earthly 
things  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  life  of  nature  and 
the  life  of  man  are  possessed  with  the  same 
mortal   tendency  ?     Why  must  the  flush    of 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  87 

health  fade  from  the  cheek,  the  flash  of 
thought  and  feehng  from  the  eye,  the  form 
graceful  or  noble  bend  and  totter  ?  Why  must 
the  deep  affections  of  the  heart  be  stopped  in 
their  impetuous  flow  by  the  barriers  of  death  ? 
Why  must  the  bodies  which  we  so  passion- 
ately love  become  so  abhorrent  that  we  hasten 
to  bury  them  out  of  our  sight  ?  Why  must 
the  institutions  our  fathers  revered,  and  under 
which  they  passed  prosperous  days,  crumble 
to  naught  and  become  a  scoff  to  the  irrever- 
ent, a  worshiped  relic  to  the  antiquary  ?  Why 
must  the  fashion  of  this  world  pass  away  ? 
These  questions  are  constantly  proposed  to 
the  thoughtful  mind.  They  merit  solemn 
consideration. 

One  reason  why  such  doom  overhangs  all 
earthly  things  is  their  imperfection.  In  our 
bodies  are  sowed  the  seeds  of  death.  With 
the  first  breath  we  inhale  corruption,  we  exhale 
death.  The  first  rush  of  blood  through  infan- 
tile arteries,  the  first  throbbings  of  the  great 
fountains  of  life,  are  not  perfect.  The  doctor 
will  describe  scientifically  these  original  defects. 
Nay,  disease  has  gotten  into  the  whole  system 
from  both  its  parents,  from  all  its  parents,  for 


88  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

a  hundred  generations,  from  its  first  parents. 
The  creature  which  God  pronounced  very  good, 
as  perfect  as  his  wisdom  could  make  him,  by 
his  own  act  marred  the  structure  he  dwelt  in, 
thrust  obstacles  among  the  exquisite  mechan- 
ism which  is  constantly  diminishing  the  vigor, 
wearing  away  the  wheels,  and  will  bring  the 
marvelous  machine  to  a  standstill — to  destruc- 
tion. 

Sometimes  the  machine  works  on  for  years 
without  getting  out  of  repair,  and  at  last  stops 
only  by  a  gradual  wearing  away  of  its  parts. 
Sometimes  it  is  broken  almost  as  soon  as  it 
begins  to  act,  some  part  refusing  to  act  and 
causing  thiis  a  stoppage  of  the  whole.  In 
others,  and  in  most,  it  operates  more  or  less 
easily  for  a  few  years,  often  getting  out  of  re- 
pair, almost  ceasing  to  move,  again  moving 
slowly  and  with  great  difficulty,  a  tearing 
cough  shaking  it,  a  piercing  pneumonia  rend- 
ing it,  an  agonizing  headache  maddening  it,  a 
paralysis,  an  apoplexy,  a  fever,  a  thousand  and 
ten  thousand  disasters  happening  to  it,  till  the 
very  inhabitant  thereof,  who  sympathizes  and 
suffers  with  its  every  weakness,  sighs  for  relief 
from  the  painful  and  prolonged  troubles.     If 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  89 

we  had  never  known  sin,  that  original  perfec- 
tion would  only  have  grown  more  perfect,  its 
loveliness  not  diminishing,  its  strength  ever 
increasing.  Sin  brought  corruption,  weakened 
infancy,  maddened  youth,  withered  age.  Sin 
causes  growth  in  weakness,  decay  unto  weak- 
ness. It  is  sin  and  sin  only  that  bringeth  forth 
death. 

But  if  by  the  fall  this  fatal  tendency  was 
implanted  in  our  bodies,  much  more  deeply  and 
fatally  was  it  brought  into  our  souls.  Not 
only  the  exquisite  structure  of  the  body  was 
bruised  and  murdered  by  the  fall,  the  far  more 
exquisite  machine  of  the  soul  was  ruined.  We 
are  apt  to  dwell  more  frequently  on  the  change- 
ableness  of  the  outer  world  of  earth  and  man  ; 
but  if  our  heart  had  not  been  blinded  in  its 
perception  of  spiritual  things,  we  should  have 
a  clearer  and  sadder  proof  of  our  mutability 
by  witnessing  the  corruption  that  has  seized 
upon  the  soul.  As  our  puny  bodies  drew  in 
death  with  their  first  vital  mother,  so  our  souls 
in  their  first  impulse  felt  the  same  doom.  De- 
praved desires  sprang  into  being  long  before 
consciousness  gave  warning  of  their  presence, 
and  so  completely  did  they  blend  themselves 


90  CHRIST  US  CO  K SO  LA  TOR. 

with  the  soul's  actions  that  they  seemed  to  it- 
self natural  and  even  necessary. 

We  are  all  aware  that  the  first  risings  of 
anger  or  pride  or  selfishness  of  which  we  are 
conscious  do  not  strike  us  as  novel,  or  make  us 
flee  from  their  horrible  presence ;  we  seem  fa- 
miliar with  them.  They  are  a  part  of  ourselves. 
We  cherish  and  fondle  and  nourish  them,  and 
seek  above  all  things  their  gratification.  Not 
till  the  teachings  of  parents  or  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  arouse  us  will  we  resist  them,  and  even 
in  resistance  we  confess  their  power.  How- 
ever much  goodness  shines  forth  in  the  uncon- 
scious life  of  childhood,  through  the  indwell- 
ings of  the  divine  Spirit,  the  baser  nature  is  also 
there,  and  "  the  trail  of  the  serpent  is  over  it 
all."      "^ 

If  we  could  see  the  beauty  of  a  perfect  soul 
we  should  be  amazed  at  the  deformity  of  our 
own  condition.  If  we  could  have  this  spiritual 
mechanism  in  all  its  marvelous  symmetry  and 
harmony  unveiled,  see  every  faculty  delight- 
edly operating  in  its  own  sphere,  and  contrib- 
uting its  portion  of  vigor  and  pleasure  to  every 
other  part,  if  self-reliance  joined  with  humility, 
benevolence  with  justice,  hospitality  with  re- 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  91 

tirement,  temperance  with  generosity,  venera- 
tion with  independence,  divine  awe  with  di- 
vine love,  mental  activity  with  devotion,  every 
faculty  full  and  perfect,  yet  no  clashing,  no  de- 
cay, would  we  not  thrill  with  rapture  at  the 
sight  ?  Would  the  mere  personal  charms,  the 
harmonious  proportions  of  the  body,  be  notice- 
able, except  as  lovely  media  for  the  lovely 
soul  ?  Compare  this  beautiful  vision  which  God 
designed  and  created  and  placed  on  this  earth 
for  a  season  with  that  which  does  not  meet 
the  eye — self-reliance  changed  to  self-conceit ; 
humility  to  haughtiness  or  to  servility  that 
creeps  at  the  feet  of  insolent  pride ;  temper- 
ance changed  to  a  bloated  appetite  which  guz- 
zles without  taste ;  constraint  to  lawlessness 
that  laughs  at  every  order  of  law ;  vanity  that 
absorbs  the  whole  attention  of  the  soul  and 
transforms  it  into  a  frivolous  thing  blown  about 
by  every  breeze  of  fashion ;  the  deep  rever- 
ence for  God  becoming  a  ribald  infidelity  or 
an  ice-bound  fatality  ;  the  powers  of  the  mind 
cultivated  independent  of  the  heart,  making  a 
giant  in  thought  and  an  idiot  in  faith,  tempt- 
ing the  self-inflated  student  with  the  very  de- 
lusion that  took  captive  our  first  parents,  so 


92  CHRISrUS  CONSOLATOR. 

that  he  thinks  he  is  what  they  hoped  to  be, 
gods  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  cultivates  the  re- 
ligious faculties  to  the  neglect  of  the  rational, 
making  a  creature  possessing  zeal  without 
knowledge,  who  scoffs  at  conscience  and  claims 
for  its  impious  ravings  the  force  of  revelation. 
Such,  also,  is  the  present  state  of  the  human 
soul ;  and  because  it  is  such,  every  expres- 
sion of  itself  in  the  laws  or  customs  of  man- 
kind is  imperfect  and  their  fashion  must  pass 
away. 

Just  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  truth 
in  every  outcome  of  the  soul  is  its  durability. 
If  it  is  thoroughly  false  and  superficial,  it  is  still- 
born ;  if  largely  so,  it  dies  in  infancy.  Perhaps 
no  more  striking  illustration  of  this  law  can  be 
given  than  in  the  changing  fashion  of  dress. 
That  mere  covering  which  is  not  itself  either 
body  or  soul,  by  its  control  over  both  body 
and  soul  has  come  to  be  called  by  this  very 
name.  The  most  fluctuating  of  all  the  prop- 
erties of  man,  its  name  (as  its  nature)  is 
fashion.  It  has  no  sound  basis ;  it  withers 
ere  it  blossoms  ;  the  angelic  apparel  must 
partake  of  the  angelic  nature  and  abide  like  the 
transfigured  robe  in  complete  symmetry  with 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  98 

the  transfigured  body  and  soul.  But  the  vic- 
tims of  this  human  passion  are  ever  on  the 
whirl.  They  die  daily  with  the  gratified  fancy. 
So  senselessly  can  the  immortal  soul  degrade 
itself,  into  such  narrow  compass  can  it  be  con- 
tracted, the  divine  man  a  model  for  a  tailor, 
the  perfect  woman  only  a  perfect  fashion 
plate. 

But  there  are  other  modes  of  prostituting 
our  natures  hardly  less  superficial  and  far  more 
debasing.  The  appetite,  which  makes  a  boor 
a  glutton,  a  man  of  breeding  an  epicure,  is 
perpetually  changing  and  never  satisfying. 
The  Roman  epicures  who  took  medicine  to 
throw  up  the  costly  dinners  they  had  just 
eaten,  that  they  might  be  permitted  to  taste 
new  viands,  were  as  gross  in  their  habits  as 
they  were  refined  in  their  dishes.  The  passion 
for  pleasure  at  any  cost  and  but  for  a  moment 
is  a  changing  emotion,  which  grows  by  what 
it  feeds  upon  and  craves  new  food  with  every 
gratification. 

These  changeful  fashions  spring  from  shallow 
sources,  call  into  exercise  no  high  faculties, 
no  deep  principles,  and  therefore,  like  the  seed 
cast  on  stony  places,  wither  quickly  away. 


94  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

Every  object  below  God  will  be  found  too 
low  in  its  nature  to  satisfy  forever  the  human 
soul.  Nay,  if  that  object  be  sinful,  you  will 
loathe  it  as  strongly  as  you  have  once  craved 
it,  loathe  not  to  rid  yourself  of  its  presence, 
but  clinging  the  closer  to  it  the  more  you  de- 
test it.  Thus  clings  the  drunkard  to  the  cups 
he  hates,  thus  the  drug-eater  to  the  opium  he 
has  made  his  master,  thus  the  lustful  to  the 
desires  that  have  consumed  him.  The  fashion 
fleeth  but  the  passion  abideth,  ever  seeking 
change,  never  finding  rest,  ever  driven  on  the 
same  stream  of  fire,  into  the  lake  of  fire,  hating 
the  sin  that  so  easily  besets,  yet  captured  by  it 
at  its  will. 

But  the  final  reason  why  the  fashion  of  this 
world  passeth  away  is  that  God  may  in  this 
way  the  more  clearly  exhibit  the  durable  na- 
ture of  eternal  things. 

If  we  turn  our  thoughts  from  the  fading  ob- 
jects of  sense  and  feeling  that  encompass  our 
earthly  estate  to  the  world  beyond  and  above 
the  grave,  the  contrast  between  these  two 
realms  is  overwhelming.  Here  everything  is 
in  constant  alternation.  "  The  mountain  crum- 
bling Cometh  to  naught,  and  the  rock   is   re- 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  95 

moved  out  of  its  place  ;  "  the  sturdy  forests  fall 
before  fire,  ax,  or  age,  and  lay  their  lifeless 
forms  among  the  leaves,  their  offspring,  which 
they  have  for  so  many  years  buried  at  their 
feet ;  the  sea  licks  up  the  shore  and  the  shore 
invades  the  sea.  The  ocean,  most  restless  of 
visible  things,  typifies  the  conditions  under 
which  earth  and  earthly  things  exist. 

The  great  worlds  that  float  in  space  slowly 
but  surely  approach  their  last  day.  The  more 
science  knows  the  more  death  it  knows.  Forces 
dissolve,  resolve,  and  then  die  the  same. 
"  Eternal  alternation"  is  the  law  of  the  phys- 
ical universe,  but  the  world  beyond  is  per- 
manent. Death  hath  no  more  dominion.  His 
control  stops  with  the  shores  of  time.  In  the 
eternal  things  there  dwells  no  taint  of  impurity, 
there  lurks  no  imperfection.  They  have  the 
truth  of  God  as  a  basis  and  are  as  immutable 
as  they  are  perfect.  The  delights  that  engage 
their  affections,  the  occupations  that  engross 
their  attention,  satisfy  without  satiating,  foster 
while  they  feed.  There  we  labor  not  for,  nor 
feast  upon,  the  meat  that  perisheth,  but  that 
which  endureth  unto  everlasting  life. 

Thus  are  presented  the   strongest   induce- 


96  CHRISrUS  CONSOLATOR. 

ments  to  secure  enduring  pleasures.  If  your 
heart's  deepest  tides  set  toward  some  soul  here, 
would  it  not  be  desirable  that  such  embodied 
love  might  be  permanent  ?  If  the  person  who 
has  thus  awakened  and  enlarged  your  whole 
being  could  abide  unchanged  in  the  beloved 
features,  fading  not  through  sickness  or  age, 
would  not  earthly  love,  now  so  deep,  so  tender, 
so  rapturous,  put  on  a  state  of  infinite  exalta- 
tion ?  Such  a  love  and  Lover  finds  the  heart  in 
Christ — such  a  home  in  his  heaven.  No  afflic- 
tion shadows  the  brightness  of  that  home.  No 
toil  or  sickness  or  years  mar  the  beauty,  dim 
the  eye,  wither  the  strength  of  that  Beloved. 
And  all  the  surroundings  of  the  Prince  and 
his  paradise  are  alike  perfect  and  perpetual. 
He  abides  forever ;  so  do  his.  The  society, 
the  scenery,  the  customs,  the  communions,  the 
government,  the  laws — they  change  not ;  they 
need  no  change ;  they  are  not  capable  of  im- 
provement. Why  throw  them  aside  ?  Who 
wishes  to  cast  aside  his  wedding  bliss?  Who 
desires  it  not  to  abide  forever?  Who  wishes 
gray  hairs,  wrinkled  cheeks,  panting  chests, 
trembling  limbs,  palpitating  hearts,  the  mo- 
nitions of  decay  ?     Who   does  not  wish  with 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  97 

Ariel  to  cry,  "  I  can  fly  or  I  can  run"  without 
exhaustion  or  decay  ?  That  wish  fulfilled  is 
heaven.  The  society  is  perpetual,  the  studies, 
the  scenes.  Not  varying  to  decay,  but  only 
to  improve,  for  Christ  is  unchanging,  and 
his  residence  and  companions  are  like  unto 
him.  His  principles,  which  are  his  nature, 
abide.  They  are  perfect,  they  endure  forever  ; 
they  project  themselves  upon  the  surround- 
ing realm,  and  it,  too,  becomes  like  its  Lord, 
eternal. 

Even  here  we  can  possess  a  fashion  that  en- 
dureth.  Our  spiritual  nature  may  take  on  the 
nature  of  God.  Charity  or  love  divine  never 
faileth.  If  the  heart  is  filled  with  this  love,  if 
it  thrills  withjoy  atthe  future  glory  and  abides 
in  peace  amid  present  temptations,  you  may 
rest  assured  that  you  have  received  the  grace 
that  endureth  forever.  The  Lord  Christ  hath 
told  us  that  if  we  eat  his  flesh  and  drink  his 
blood  we  shall  never  die.  If  our  hearts  are 
possessed  by  his  Spirit  the  corrupting  and  cor- 
ruptible passions  which  they  had  followed  will 
vanish  away  and  the  grace  will  enter  which 
endureth  forever.  Amid  the  universal  decay 
and  dissolution  going  on  about  us  and  within 


98  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

US  there  stands  forth  this  undying  principle, 
this  Hfe  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  As  the 
Hebrew  youth  in  the  fiery  furnace,  unscathed 
amid  the  fierce  destruction  going  on  around 
them,  so  stands  this  experience  divine,  the 
temple  of  truth  and  holiness,  coming  down 
from  God  out  of  heaven  amid  the  wreck  of 
matter  and  spirit,  ceaselessly  prevailing.  To 
that  temple  you  can  alone  fly  for  shelter.  In 
it  you  can  alone  abide  in  unchanging  peace. 
From  it  you  can  gaze  with  calmness  upon  the 
desolation  reigning  around  you.  You  can  see 
empires  totter  and  fall,  dynasties  disappear, 
laws  die,  institutions,  political  or  social  or  re- 
ligious, grow  decrepit  and  enter  their  grave,  or 
shattered  in  an  instant  by  infuriated  mobs, 
friend  and  lover  put  far  from  you  and  your  ac- 
quaintance disappear  in  the  darkness  ;  nay,  you 
yourself  draw  near  and  nearer  the  dominions  of 
death.  Yet  no  abiding  sorrow  need  weigh  you 
down,  for  you  can  feel  assured  that  though  the 
heavens  pass  away,  silently  or  with  a  great 
noise,  though  the  earth  be  removed  out  of  its 
place,  though  death  sweep  the  universal  circle 
of  your  souls  with  its  dread  besom,  still  "  from 
everlasting  to  everlasting  Thou  art  God,"  and 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  99 

from  death  to  life  comes  forth  buried  loves  and 
lovers.  We  can  turn  from  the  changing 
fashions  of  earth  to  the  everlasting  fashions  of 
heaven.  We  can  see  reproduced  there  in 
fairer  colors  every  worthy  object  which  we 
loved  here.  We  can  see  those  qualities  which 
were  the  strongest  attractions  in  our  friends  out- 
living the  power  which  had  slain  the  body  and 
clothed  in  undecaying  forms  of  unspeakable 
loveliness  and  life. 

We  are  all  rapidly  approaching  that  world. 
The  seeds  of  death  planted  in  each  of  us 
before  our  birth  grow  with  our  growth  and 
strengthen  with  our  strength.  They  may  find 
so  rich  a  soil  that  they  in  a  few  years  overtop 
the  tree  of  life  and  bring  us  to  the  garner  of 
the  grave.  If  the  vital  forces  resist  these  anti- 
vital  forces  strenuously,  the  conflict  may  be  a 
losing  one  for  a  score  or  two  of  years,  and  then 
comes  the  turn  of  battle  ;  the  forces  of  death 
steadily  win  their  way,  they  lay  low  leader  and 
regiment  of  natural  vitality ;  after  leader  and 
regiment  the  eye  fails,  the  limbs  cease  to  fly 
at  the  order  of  the  will,  the  heart  throbs  con- 
vulsively and  weakly,  the  appetite  narrows  it- 
self to   regular  and  infrequent  channels,   the 


100  CHRIST  us  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

nerves  tremble  at  one's  trifling  pressure.  The 
death  army  abandons  no  field  it  has  once  won. 
It  may  allow  partial  repossession,  but  under  its 
sovereignty,  until,  wearied  with  its  delay,  it 
takes  complete  possession — your  countenance 
is  changed  and  you  pass  away. 

It  is  related  of  Xerxes  that,  while  preparing 
to  cross  from  Asia  to  Greece,  he  ordered  a  re- 
view to  be  made  on  the  shores  of  Abydos.  A 
magnificent  throne  was  erected  upon  a  lofty 
peak.  Seated  on  this  pinnacle  of  gold  he 
gazed  upon  the  unnumbered  millions  below 
him  on  ship  and  shore.  No  sight  could  have 
been  more  dazzling  or  more  august.  The  hill- 
sides were  white  with  tents,  the  sea  with  ships. 
Gay  banners  floating  in  the  sun,  glittering 
with  gold  and  silver,  weakened  the  eye  by 
their  brightness  and  beauty.  Multitudes  upon 
multitudes  of  men  filled  up  the  vast  shores, 
while  on  the  dark  sea  lay  the  pompous  galleys, 
decked  with  &v&ry  ornament  unbounded  wealth 
and  intense  love  of  display  could  suggest  or 
procure.  In  the  midst  of  such  pride  and  cir- 
cumstance of  glorious  war,  when  nature  seemed 
to  have  been  completely  ravaged  to  contrib- 
ute to  his  glory,  when  multitudinous  nobles 


THE  WORLD  VANISHING.  101 

rejoiced  to  kiss  the  hem  of  his  garment  and 
worshiped  him  as  god,  Xerxes  wept.  Amazed 
at  such  an  act,  expressive  of  feehngs  so  con- 
trary to  those  in  which  they  were  indulging, 
they  reverently  inquired  the  cause  of  the  tears. 
"Alas!"  said  he,  "of  all  this  vast  multitude 
not  one  will  be  left  upon  the  earth  a  hundred 
years  hence."  That  was  said  more  than  two 
thousand  years  ago.  How  many  generations 
have  followed  that  over  which  he  wept  and 
uttered  this  sad  truth  !  We  occupy  their  places 
for  a  few  days  and  then  we  lie  beside  them. 

In  the  midst  of  such  constant  decay  and 
death  have  your  feet  fixed  on  the  Rock  that 
crumbles  not — the  Rock  of  ages  past  and  to 
come — on  the  Rock  Christ  Jesus.  Then  can 
you  rejoice  that,  though  death  may  seize  upon 
your  body  as  his  rightful  prey,  after  that  he 
hath  no  more  that  he  can  do.  The  soul  is 
safe.  It  shall  pass  into  the  unchanging  yet 
ever-changing  society  of  heaven.  There  the 
laws  are  perfect,  friendship  and  love  enduring, 
the  faces  of  dear  ones  never  grow  pale  and 
cold  and  resolve  to  dreadful  dust,  the  funeral 
bell  and  train  cast  no  gloom  over  happy  homes. 
The  cemetery,  awful  with  all  its  greenness,  bor- 


102  CHKISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

ders  not  the  river  of  the  water  of  life.  There 
is  no  Greenwood  or  Mount  Auburn  necessary 
for  the  New  Jerusalem.  The  present  old,  sin- 
ful one  is  surrounded  with  graves — how  em- 
blematic of  man  ! — the  new  with  life.  The 
death  of  Christ  has  accomplished  this.  The 
resurrection  secured  it.  Let  us  on  this  glad 
day  put  our  whole  trust  in  that  mighty  Re- 
deemer. 


y 


"  Love  not  the  world,  neither  the  things  that  are  in  the 
world.  If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father 
is  not  in  him.  For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the 
flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,  is  not  of 
the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world.  And  the  world  passeth 
away,  and  the  lust  thereof :  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God 
abideth  forever." — I  John  ii,  15-17. 


"  We  turn  to  dust,  and  all  our  mightiest  works 
Die  too  :  the  deep  foundations  that  we  lay, 
Time  plows  them  up,  and  not  a  trace  remains. 
We  build  with  what  we  deem  eternal  rock  ; 
A  distant  age  asks  where  the  fabric  stood  ; 
And  in  the  dust,  sifted  and  searched  in  vain, 
The  undiscoverable  secret  sleeps." 

"  Ere  mountains  reared  their  forms  sublime, 
Or  heaven  and  earth  in  order  stood. 

Before  the  birth  of  ancient  time. 
From  everlasting  thou  art  God. 


"  To  us,  O  Lord,  the  wisdom  give 
Each  passing  moment  so  to  spend, 

That  we  at  length  with  thee  may  live 
Where  life  and  bliss  shall  never  end. 


IV. 

MAN   FAILS,  GOD   ABIDES. 

THE  disciple,  in  the  days  of  John,  was 
peculiarly  situated.  He  not  only  had  to 
deny  himself  every  home  delight,  leaving  par- 
ents and  friends  for  the  sake  of  the  Gospel, 
but  he  was  compelled  to  abandon  the  whole 
life  of  society,  as  it  all  set  in  an  idolatrous  di- 
rection. The  world,  to  his  eyes,  was  sin  and 
only  sin,  and  that  continually.  Upon  the  tow- 
ering hills  of  his  land  rose  the  beautiful  temples 
of  idolatry.  Lining  the  streets  of  every  city 
were  the  tripods  crowned  with  images  that  all 
were  compelled  to  worship.  In  the  stores 
and  market  places  everywhere  were  idols  and 
idol  offerings  for  sale.  Over  the  fireplace  of 
the  house,  as  on  your  mantels,  or  in  niches 
about  the  dwelling,  sat  the  home  deities. 
Every  festival  was  in  honor  of  some  god.  In 
front  of  the  audience  sat  the  priests  of  the 
gods.  Around  the  theater  of  Bacchus  in 
Athens  to-day,  where  were  enacted  the  great 
dramas  of  Sophocles  and  ^Eschylus,  the  marble 


106  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

chairs  in  the  front  row  have  inscribed  upon 
them  the  names  of  the  priests  of  the  various 
divinities,  Jupiter,  Minerva,  Apollo,  and  oth- 
ers through  the  list.  The  name  of  the  theater 
itself,  of  its  plays,  of  its  chief  dignitaries,  of 
the  city  itself,  were  all  commemorative  of  some 
deity,  so  called,  so  believed,  so  worshiped. 
The  centers  of  political  action  were  controlled 
by  the  same  religiousness.  The  temples  of  Ju- 
piter and  Venus  confront  the  forum  at  Pom- 
peii, and  the  spot  where  Cicero  spoke  was  sur- 
rounded with  the  temples  and  statues  of  the 
gods  of  Rome.  If  compelled  to  enter  the 
army,  as  all  were,  he  was  required  to  acknowl- 
edge his  national  master  as  god.  He  must 
recognize  the  emperor  not  only  as  ruling  by 
right  divine,  but  as  divine  himself.  He  must 
choose  between  patriotism  and  idolatry.  He 
must  be  guilty  of  treason  to  man  or  to  God. 
Thus  his  life  was  seemingly  inextricably  in- 
volved in  the  surrounding  superstition.  He 
was  not  merely  entangled  in  irreligion,  he  was 
involved  in  false  religion.  Its  currents  swept 
everywhere.  Its  waves  covered  the  face  of  so- 
ciety. Fifteen  fathoms  higher  than  the  high- 
est mountains,  social,  civil,  or  literary,  rolled 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  107 

the  great  deluge.  There  was  no  possibility  of 
escape. 

What  shall  he  do?  How  can  he  live  amid 
such  all-penetrating,  all-controlling  influences  ? 
He  is  born  anew,  yet  born  into  a  world  with 
which  he  can  have  no  sympathy,  in  which  he 
cannot  breathe  one  spiritual  breath,  whose 
touch  is  dangerous,  whose  communion  is 
deadly.  How  shall  he  keep  himself  unspot- 
ted ?  If  he  pass  the  tripods  in  the  street,  he 
must  make  obeisance.  If  he  purchase  wares 
under  the  patronage  of  Mercury,  is  he  not  rec- 
ognizing him  as  a  god  ?  If  he  buy  the  flesh 
offered  to  idols — for  it  is  cheaper  and  better 
than  the  rest,  and  he  is  poor — will  he  not 
thereby  become  an  idolater?  If  he  visit  his 
heathen  friend's  kinsfolk  and  partake  of  their 
hospitalities,  is  he  not  indorsing  the  superstition 
that  presides  at  their  feast?  Thus  is  he  in 
jeopardy  every  hour.  Which  way  shall  he  turn  ? 
On  every  side  is  peril ;  snares  and  pitfalls 
abound. 

Nay,  more.  His  steps  are  watched  by  malig- 
nant eyes.  He  is  disloyal  if  he  will  not  bow, 
impious  if  he  neglect  the  temples  and  shrines, 
a  traitor  to  the  state  not  less  than  to  Olympus. 


108  CIIRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

"  Is  not  Socrates'  cell  yet  with  us,  where  we 
made  him  drink  the  fatal  hemlock,  simply  be- 
cause he  abstained  from  the  worship  of  some  of 
the  gods  ?  And  shall  you  escape  who  say  they  are 
all  no  gods  ?  If  our  greatest  was  done  to  death 
by  official  power  for  lack  of  faith,  how  much 
more  you." 

Thus  he  is  shut  in  bylaw,  custom,  prejudice, 
power.  The  lions  roar  for  him  in  the  arena, 
the  fagots  snap  for  him  around  the  stake.  On 
every  side  is  death.  In  the  midst  of  all  these 
allurements  and  dangers  what  shall  he  do  ? 
How  shall  he  escape  both  the  flatteries  and  the 
frowns,  the  snares  and  the  shafts,  of  the  devil  ? 
How  ?  By  simply  allowing  the  new  life  to  grow 
to  its  full  stature,  by  conferring  not  with  flesh 
and  blood,  but  by  putting  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  by  letting  the  love  of  God  be  perfected 
in  him ;  this  will  guide  him  with  discretion  ; 
this  will  make  him  courageous  where  courage 
is  demanded,  prudent  where  prudence ;  this 
will  lead  him  through  the  fascinations  that  glit- 
ter around  him  ;  this  will  strengthen  him  to 
meet  cheerfully  the  dangers  that  await  him ; 
this  will  enable  him  to  love  not  this  present 
world,  but  to  feel  the  raptures  of  the  higher,  the 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  1G9 

highest  love  of  and  for  the  Father ;  this  will 
make  him  walk  serenely,  his  eyes  uplifted 
to  the  heavenly  hills,  his  soul  marching  on 
those  eternal  summits. 

With  us-  circumstances  are  altered.  It  is  not 
false  religion  that  allures  us  so  much  as  irre- 
ligion.  Not  that  false  religions  have  ceased. 
Far  from  it.  Not  that  they  are  altogether  un- 
popular and  unattractive.  It  is  sad  to  confess 
that  though  Christ  has  been  preached  for  six 
thousand  years,  and  visibly,  historically,  and 
authoritatively  preached  for  the  last  sixty 
generations,  there  are  even  in  Christian  coun- 
tries those  who  set  up  another  religion  than 
his,  who  still  deny,  betray,  and  crucify  him. 
But  these  are  not  all-powerful  and  everywhere 
powerful  as  were  those.  They  are  attempts 
to  oppose  an  otherwise  universal  faith,  not  an 
otherwise  universal  idolatry  attempting  to  sub- 
vert and  absorb  a  little  knot  of  Christians. 
"Great  Pan  is  dead!"  The  great  peril  of  to- 
day is  not  in  false  religion,  but  in  irreligion. 
This  yet  lives  if  Pan  the  mighty  is  gone.  The 
idols  are  tumbled  from  their  shrines,  but  idola- 
try still  abounds.  The  theaters  do  not  assign 
by    brass   tablets    and    marble    cuttings   their 


110  CHRISTUS  CONSOLA  TOR. 

chief  chairs  to  the  clergy,  but  they  still  flaunt 
their  attractions.  Sin  does  not  assert  its  god- 
head, but  it  does  its  power.  The  devil,  if  he 
has  dropped  the  robe  of  deity,  still  wears  that  of 
pleasure.  The  saved  soul  is  still  compelled  to 
walk  amid  temptations  gay,  bewildering,  fatal. 
How  shall  we  dwell  among  them  ?  That  is 
the  question  for  to-day.  How  shall  we  live 
among  these  sinful  allurements,  not  only  unse- 
duced  but  unmoved,  unconscious  that  they  exist 
about  us?  Are  you  really  wishing  to  know? 
Would  you  not  regret  if  that  carnal  passion  in 
its  sinful  expression  were  eradicated  from  your 
heart?  Ask  yourself  before  God.  Has  not 
that  passion  got  such  hold  upon  you  that  you 
prefer  to  have  God  yield  to  it  rather  than  it  to 
God  ;  that  you  desire  to  have  religion  modi- 
fied so  as  to  admit  of  that  pleasure,  rather 
than  the  desire  for  the  pleasure  abolished 
from  the  heart  ?  Be  honest  with  your  Sav- 
iour. Search  diligently.  The  central  thought 
around  which  the  text  revolves  is  this :  The 
love  of  God  should  be  the  law  of  our  being. 
We  should  breathe  every  breath  of  our  soul  in 
and  by  this  atmosphere.  Every  affection  must 
revolve  around  this  center,  must  draw  life  and 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  Ill 

motion  from  him  alone.  The  thing  from  which 
the  Holy  Ghost  seeks  to  dissuade  us  is  a  sep- 
arate love,  one  that  interferes  with  or  ranks 
itself  above  that  supreme  devotion.  Come, 
then,  a  little  closer  about  this  delightful  duty. 
You  will  find  it  demands  nothing  that  is  not 
agreeable  to  our  highest  nature,  nothing  that 
we  shall  not  instinctively,  irrepressibly  crave 
if  we  allow  that  nature  its  legitimate  direction 
and  fullest  indulgence. 

The  love  of  and  for  God  includes  all  virtuous 
lower  loves.  He  is  the  Author  of  every  good 
and  perfect  gift.  If  we  love  the  Author,  we 
shall  and  must  the  gifts.  If  we  love  the  gifts 
rightly,  we  shall  the  more  love  the  Author. 
The  joys  of  sense  all  flow  from  him.  Who 
made  your  palate  susceptible  of  exquisite  de- 
light when  the  viands,  solidified  odors,  touch 
it  ?  Who  lined  the  organs  of  smell  with 
nerves  so  delicate  as  to  detect  the  subtlest 
fragrance  floating  in  the  air  and  cause  them 
to  send  the  thrills  of  their  delights  throughout 
the  soul  ?  If  viands  are  solidified  odors,  odors 
are  aerial  viands,  and  feed  the  finer  tissues  of 
our  being  with  their  finer  food.  Who  gave 
these  insensate  compounds  of  the  kitchen  and 


112  CIIKISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

the  laboratory  such  ineffable  grace  ?  Who  filled 
the  world  with  harmonies,  hiding  them  in  the 
skins  and  entrails  and  hairs  of  beasts,  in  brass 
and  wood  and  iron,  and  in  our  own  throats? 
Who  made  the  ear,  a  far  from  beautiful  organ 
externally,  capable  of  detecting  melodies  in  the 
movements  of  the  throat,  the  rubbing  of  string 
upon  string,  the  blowing  of  wind  through  hol- 
low pipes  and  reeds  ?  Who  gave  the  eye  its 
apprehension  of  the  infinite  fascinations  of 
nature  and  of  art,  and  who  gave  nature  and 
art  those  fascinations  in  which  the  eye  revels? 
The  joys  of  sense,  are  they  not  from  God  ? 
And  is  he  not  greater  than  his  gifts  ?  Will  he 
not  be  jealous,  and  justly  so,  if  we  put  them  in 
our  regard  above  him  ?  If  you  love  the  thea- 
ter, which  is  alluring  only  because  it  has  cer- 
tain attractions  which  it  has  stolen  from  God 
and  appropriated  to  his  enemy,  if  you  love  it 
with  eyes  and  ears  whose  virtues  he  has  be- 
stowed, will  he  not  say,  "  You  have  robbed  me 
of  mine  own.  You  have  taken  my  gifts  and 
appropriated  them  to  self  and  sin  ?  "  So  also 
of  the  superior  blessings  of  life  and  love.  Life 
is  the  gift  of  God.  Why  are  you  here,  a  sen- 
tient, a  thinking,  a  volitional  being  ?    Why  did 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  A  BIDE  S.  113 

you  ever  live  ?  How  happens  it  that  out  of 
the  dust  you  were  taken  and  into  that  body 
of  yours  that  soul  of  yours  was  breathed  ? 
Whence  did  you  get  your  life  ?  Did  you 
ever  think  on  this  thought  ?  We  often  dwell 
upon  the  thought  that  we  may  soon  be  dead, 
but  rarely  on  the  equally,  nay,  more  mysterious 
one,  that  we  ever  lived.  Death,  dust,  noth- 
ingness, is  our  natural  estate,  not  life,  thought, 
love.  Wonderful,  awful  gift  of  God  !  You 
are  not  I.  Your  living  does  not  necessitate 
my  living.  Your  parents'  living  did  not  neces- 
sitate yours.  Every  one  of  us  is,  in  the  highest 
sense,  as  was  Melchizedek  in  a  priestly  sense, 
without  father  or  mother.  The  reply  of  the 
Catechism  and  of  every  parent  to  the  question 
of  the  child  as  to  who  made  him  is  a  scientific 
truth.  God,  is  their  rightful  answer.  Not 
forces  of  nature,  not  combinations  of  forces, 
not  man,  but  God,  is  the  direct,  the  sole  Au- 
thor of  every  being.  Each  is  an  Adam,  an 
original  creation.  That  birth  out  of  nothing 
was  marvelous.  So  is  ours  alike  marvelous. 
To  live,  to  be,  to  know,  to  love,  'tis  mystery 
all,  and   we  adore.     What  it  is  no  eye   hath 

yet  seen  or  can  see.    No  chemist  can  track  this 

8 


114  CHRISrUS  CONSOLATOR. 

secret  to  its  hiding-place,  no  metaphysician  find 
this  center  alike  of  all  physics  and  metaphysics 
— life.  And  yet  many  accept  this  sublime  gift 
of  God  and  never  acknowledge  him  as  the 
giver.  You  exercise  all  your  faculties  daily, 
full  of  life,  and  never  turn  grateful  hearts  to 
Him  through  whom,  and  through  whom  alone, 
you  live  and  move  and  have  your  being.  Nay, 
worse,  we  seize  this  marvelous  gift  of  God  and 
appropriate  it  to  the  very  things  he  most  ab- 
hors. We  take  our  lives  and  devote  them  to 
our  own  selfish  ends.  We  rush  by  the  aid 
alone  of  our  God-given  energies  into  forbidden 
deeds  and  places  and  pleasures.  We  eat  with 
organs  made  by  him  and  kept  alive  by  him  the 
very  fruit  he  forbids  us  to  taste.  God  is  de- 
spised, while  the  strength  he  imparts  is  stolen 
from  him  and  perverted  to  all  ungodliness. 
Ought  he  not  to  feel  the  insult  and  the  crime  ? 
But  chiefly  we  pervert  his  greatest  gift — love. 
The  taste,  the  smell,  the  hearing,  the  seeing, 
the  touch,  that  sense  which  surpasses  all  the 
rest  in  its  diffusion  and  delicacy,  which  is  the 
crown  and  glory  of  all  other  bodily  gifts — these 
are  much.  Life  is  an  astonishing  gift.  Yet  all 
these  perish  and  die  before  love.     The  first 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  115 

are  mere  titillations  of  the  soul  ;  that  is,  the 
mere  existence  of  the  soul.  Love  is  the  soul's 
self.  It  is  the  soul  living,  and  living  its  in- 
tensest  life.  More  than  thought,  more  than 
resolve,  more  than  all  things,  is  love.  Who 
gave  you  this  "  effluence  of  bright  essence  in- 
create  ?  "  Who  made  you  thrill  with  ecstasy 
at  its  lowest  agitations  ?  Who  made  you  re- 
joice when  a  pleasant  odor,  taste,  sight,  or 
sound  struck  the  nerve  of  sensation  ?  Who 
made  your  eyes  kindle  with  passion  when  they 
spoke  love  to  eyes  that  spake  again  ?  Who 
stirred  your  soul,  O  mother,  O  father,  with 
those  unutterable  agitations  of  bliss  when  that 
newborn  babe  was  placed  in  your  arms? 
Who  kindled  those  unquenchable  fires  in  the 
depths  of  your  being — fires  which  warm  and 
brighten  the  whole  chamber  of  your  inner- 
most life  and  make  that  which  was  before, 
perhaps,  a  dungeon  dripping  with  tears  sud- 
denly a  palace  brilliant  with  unspeakable 
glory?  Who  filled  your  heart,  O  son,  with 
that  yearning  for  your  mother's  arms  and 
smile  and  kiss,  and  made  you  feel  in  the  shel- 
ter of  home  the  raptures  of  ineffable  peace  ? 
Who  makes  your  glad  heart  dance  for  joy,  O 


116  C//AVS  T  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

daughter,  when  you  feel  the  strong  paternal 
arms  once  more  about  you,  and  that  protect- 
ing benediction  falling  smilingly  upon  you  ? 
Who  gave  us  love  in  all  its  breadth  and  length 
and  height  and  depth — love  for  nature  and 
for  man,  for  friend  and  country,  for  parent  and 
companion  and  child,  for  pleasure  and  knowl- 
edge, "  love,  the  divinest  of  the  train  and 
sovereign  of  the  rest?"  Who?  God,  God 
only.  Had  he  not  imparted  this  trait  to  your 
nature,  you  would  have  been  as  emotionless  as 
a  stone.  Like  the  dust  out  of  which  you  were 
taken,  your  heart  would  remain  but  dust.  He 
gave  it  this  divine  electricity. 

But  another  question  rises  "  like  an  exhala- 
tion "  to  cover  with  its  dark  folds  all  this  glad- 
ness and  glory.  How  do  we  use  this  last,  best 
gift  of  God,  this  very  God  and  his  highest  ex- 
pression ?  For  "  God  is  love."  My  God,  what 
a  reply  is  forced  from  the  reluctant  soul  at 
that  question  !  How  ?  This  love  that  is  given 
us  that  we  may  give  it  all  back  to  him,  we  in- 
stantly seize,  this  his  own  nature,  and  wrest  to 
ourselves  and  our  sin.  We  change  it  to  lust. 
The  ayd-nr)  becomes  kmdvfiia  ;  love,  sweet,  sim- 
ple— like  the  lily  of  July,  sheltered  from  fervent 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  117 

rays,  resting  on  the  cool  bosom  of  the  lake, 
perfect  in  color  and  fragrance — lo  !  it  is  changed 
to  a  hot  and  heating  thing,  an  over-passion,  a 
super-raging ;  for  the  root  of  the  word  is  raging, 
rushing ;  its  second  derivative  is  the  fleshly- 
soul,  the  animal  being  hot  and  urgent  and  un- 
reasoning ;  its  third  is  both  of  these  intensi- 
fied. And  that  is  what  love  becomes  when  per- 
verted from  God  and  made  a  creature  of  self 
and  sin.     It  is  no  longer  love,  but  lust. 

All  unlawful  love  is  lust.  Thus  the  apostle 
recognizes  it.  The  lust  of  the  eye,  he  calls  it, 
not  the  love — that  is  lawful ;  the  lust  of  the 
flesh,  not  its  love — that  is  symmetrical  and  di- 
vine. The  hot,  surging  waves  of  distempered, 
unrestrained  passion  foaming  out  shame — that 
is  what  the  soul  turns  into  when  it  turns  its 
back  on  its  Creator  and  first  Lover.  Nay, 
more ;  one  perversity  brews  another.  Love 
changed  to  lust  corrupts  the  proper  sense  of 
life  itself.  It  becomes  a  pride  of  life,  the 
haughty  confidence  in  this  life  as  ours  and 
completely  within  our  control.  "  It  is  mine. 
I  will  employ  it  as  I  will.  I  am  not  God's 
steward  ;  I  am  my  own  master.  I  despise  the 
Giver  of  life  as  I  do  the  love  that  gave  it.     I 


118  CIIRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

owe  nothing  to  nobody — not  even  to  my  par- 
ents. I  am  my  own  creator."  This  haughty 
spirit  goeth  before  destruction,  this  ungodly 
pride  before  a  fall. 

These  are  not  of  the  Father,  but  of  the  world. 
They  are  perversions  of  that  affection  and  re- 
spect which  eye  and  heart  should  pay  to  the 
Lord  of  life  and  love.  They  are  proclamations 
of  independence.  They  declare  that  the  soul 
which  they  are  and  which  they  have  become  has 
renounced  its  allegiance  to  its  Creator,  has  set 
up  its  own  throne  in  its  own  nature,  has  gone 
over  to  God's  enemy  and  its^and  will  have 
nothing  more  to  do  with  God,  will  have  none 
of  his  ways  or  intimacy.  It  is  in  revolt,  and 
seeks  to  be  what  it  never  can  be — independent. 

How  shall  the  soul  recover  its  lost  estate  ? 
How  shall  it  restore  these  revolting  affections 
to  their  obedience  ?  By  first  fixing  them  upon 
God.  The  rebellious  must  first  show  repent- 
ance, and  feel  it  even,  by  accepting  the  Head 
from  whom  they  revolted.  Had  our  Revolu- 
tionary fathers  returned  to  their  allegiance,  it 
would  not  have  been  the  Parliament  that  they 
would  have  accepted  as  their  head,  but  the 
king,  for  from  him  they  especially  revolted. 


MAN  FAILS.  COD  ABIDES.  119 

It  was  the  king  whom  they  fought  in  the  Decla- 
ration, the  king  they  fought  in  the  field  ;  it 
must  be  the  king  whom  they  shall  first  accept 
if  they  return  at  all.  So  our  later  rebels,  who 
cast  off  their  allegiance  to  the  flag,  must  ac- 
cept that  allegiance  ere  they  are  truly,  in- 
wardly, completely  loyal.  They  must  revere 
it,  honor  it,  serve  it.  That  is  the  symbol 
of  national  authority :  that  is  the  symbol  by 
which  is  tested  their  entire,  hearty  restoration. 
Even  so  must  we  all,  rebels  against  God, 
resume  our  loyalty  by  fixing  our  hearts'  de- 
sires upon  God  himself.  We  must  cry  out, 
"  Against  thee,  thee  only,  have  I  sinned,  and 
done  this  evil  in  thy  sight."  We  must  feel 
that  to  him  our  restored  relations  cordially 
cling.,  God  is  love.  He  has  given  us  love.  We 
have  corrupted  it  into  lust.  He  asks  its  resto- 
ration. .  We  grant  it.  To  whom  must  we  go 
but  to  him  ?  Our  first  pulsation,  were  we  not 
fallen,  would  be  to  him.  "  I  delight  to  do  thy 
will,  O  my  God  !  "  With  Christ  would  we  say, 
It  is  more  than  my  meat  and  my  drink  to  do 
the  will  of  Him  that  sendeth  me.  Meat  and 
drink  only  sustain  the  union  of  body  and  soul, 
while  soul  and  body  are  rapt  into  this  heavenly 


120  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOK. 

service.  Thus  felt  our  first  parents  until  a 
lower  passion  thrust  God  from  his  throne  in 
their  souls  and  drove  them  into  rebellion 
against  God.  To  restore  lost  relations  there 
must  be  a  restoration  of  lost  affections,  and 
the  highest  affection  is  for  God  the  Lord. 

The  processes  in  which  this  rebellion  is  here 
depicted  must  be  restored.  The  eye  craves 
many  things  the  heart  or  flesh  is  indifferent 
to,  the  flesh  or  heart  many  the  eye  cares  not 
for.  Each  must  like  its  own,  but  in  the  Lord 
and  to  the  Lord.  The  eye  is  fascinated  with 
pictures,  facial  angles  and  expressions,  mere 
combinations  of  sun  and  shadows,  mere  varia- 
tions of  light ;  for  that  is  all  that  makes  up 
scenery  or  eye  effects.  These  have  no  neces- 
sary connection  with  the  heart.  One  may  visit 
the  theater  merely  from  a  love  for  its  shows, 
with  no  real  motions  of  the  heart  in  their  pres- 
ence. Children  and  youth  usually  put  the  two 
together,  but  men  and  women  rarely  do.  They 
can  see  and  even  share  in  the  dance  without 
emotion.  Not  so  the  young.  They  unite  in- 
stantly the  heat  engendered  by  seeing  with  that 
of  the  flesh  or  whole  animal  being.  The  two 
lusts  breed  lust  lustily.     The  soul  is  corrupted 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  121 

almost  as  soon  as  it  sees.  The  bones  of  the 
poor  youth  thus  cast  to  the  Hons  of  tempta- 
tion are  broken  ere  they  come  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  den.  But  the  passion  centering  in 
the  eye  grows  weaker  with  use  and  age.  One 
gets  tired  of  the  most  entrancing  paintings, 
and  can  wander  through  great  galleries  as 
carelessly  as  through  a  workshop.  So  he  can 
become  indifferent  to  scenery,  to  spectacles  of 
every  sort,  so  even  he  can  become  passionless 
before  sinful  scenes.  But  if  he  is  not  a  Chris- 
tian the  lust  of  the  flesh  increases  with  years, 
increases  rapidly,  fiercely,  and  exhausts  the 
entire  strength  of  his  being,  but  exhausts  not 
its  own  desires.  See  it  in  the  appetite  for  to- 
bacco or  strong  drinks.  There  is  nothing 
beautiful  in  a  pack  of  black  leaves,  an  oiled 
and  begrimed  pipe,  or  a  tumbler  of  yellowish 
fluid.  Yet  how  many  men  will  eat  and  drink 
these  homely  substances  !  Pressing  the  black 
mud  down  their  throats  as  Pacific  Islanders  do 
their  rolls  of  rice  dough,  draining  draught  after 
draught  of  delirious  whisky  as  if  it  were  the 
water  of  life,  eating  it,  drinking  it  in,  the  eye 
sees  naught  and  hence  can  feed  no  lust  of  its 
own.     A  president  of  a  turnverein,  who  had 


122  CHRIS7US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

been  converted  and  become  a  Methodist  min- 
ister, said  that  when  president  he  was  officially 
required  to  drink  a  gallon  of  beer  at  a  draught. 
If  he  stopped  to  breathe  he  lost  his  chair. 
He  had  often  done  it.  He  had  drunk  a 
"  schooner "  as  each  stroke  of  twelve  was 
struck  at  midnight — twelve  glasses  in  twelve 
strokes.  When  asked  what  the  sensation  was, 
"  Nothing,"  he  replied,  "  but  simply  to  get  it 
down.  The  throat  was  only  a  tunnel.  There 
was  no  pleasure.     It  was  merely  business." 

Such  is  often  the  lust  of  the  flesh — power- 
ful, irresistible,  but  not  enjoyable.  The  lust 
for  money  is  of  this  sort.  Multitudes  crave 
it  for  itself,  not  for  what  it  produces,  not 
for  its  looks.  A  greasy,  ragged  bank  bill  of  a 
high  denomination  is  far  lovelier  to  their  eye 
than  a  new  one  of  lower  value.  The  passion 
grows  by  what  it  feeds  on,  until  the  one  ab- 
sorbing passion  is  to  accumulate.  Such  is  the 
lust  of  the  debauchee,  of  the  gambler,  of  the 
man  of  the  world.  This  is  the  passion  of  every 
one  who  seeks  pleasure  in  vile  books,  talk,  and 
society,  in  all  the  low,  hidden,  dark,  but  most 
powerful  currents  of  society. 

Mixed  with  these  is  the  spirit  of  arrogance 


MAN  FAILS,   GOD  ABIDES.  123 

that  finds  expression  in  the  Pharisee's  prayer, 
"  I  thank  Thee  that  I  am  not  as  other  men 
are  ;  "  that  subtle  sense  of  self-confidence  and 
self-satisfaction  that  ranks  itself  above  its 
neighbors  and  haughtily  assumes  the  suprem- 
acy. It  is  not  the  exclusive  property  of  the 
rich  or  of  ancient  families,  so  called,  though 
here  it  flowers  into  its  most  gorgeous  forms 
and  colors.  It  is  found  in  every  sinner's  heart  ; 
in  yours,  if  you  say,  "  I  do  not  believe  God  will 
condemn  me.  Me  ?  How  can  he  ?  What  have 
I  done  ?  Do  I  not  lead  a  decent  life  ?  Do  I  lie, 
or  steal,  or  murder  ?  Am  I  such  a  villain  as  that 
thief  or  forger  ?  Am  I  to  be  put  by  the  side  of 
that  sinful  creature?  Do  you  dare  to  place 
me  on  a  level  with  a  Negro  or  a  Chinaman  ?  " 
There  is  your  pride  of  life.  There  is  your  seat 
of  death.  How  many  a  man  as  proud,  as  good 
outwardly,  perhaps  inwardly,  as  you,  has,  in 
the  late  calamities,  been  proved  as  low  as  the 
lowest,  and  been  compelled  to  take  his  seat 
by  their  side  in  the  criminal  docket,  put  on  the 
same  prison  garments,  sleep  in  the  same  stone 
cell  ?  You  say,  "  I  sin  not ;  "  therefore  your  sin 
remaineth. 

All  these  passions  thus  indulged  come  be- 


;  24  CHRIS  TUS  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

tween  the  soul  and  God.  "  If  any  man  love 
the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him." 
You  cannot  have  two  perfect  and  perfectly 
equal  loves  at  the  same  time.  Nay,  you  can- 
not have  two  perfect  and  perfectly  equal  loves 
at  two  different  times.  You  may  have  many 
a  perfect  love,  but  none  perfectly  equal.  They 
are  rank  above  rank.  The  first  love,  that  of 
the  child  for  its  parents,  may  be  perfect,  but  it 
is  of  lower  rank  than  that  of  wife  and  husband, 
lower  than  that  of  parents  for  the  child.  Each 
love  may  be  perfect  after  its  kind,  but  the 
kinds  are  set  in  order  as  the  ranks  of  heaven — 
**  thrones,  dominations,  princedoms,  virtues, 
powers."  One  star  differeth  from  another  star 
in  glory,  so  doth  one  love  from  another. 

But  if  the  love  of  this  kind  is  perfect,  that 
love  can  never  in  its  essence  be  improved 
upon.  If  the  soul  has  gone  out  in  its  fullness 
toward  another  soul,  that  outgoing  can  never 
be  duplicated.  It  can  never  so  go  out  toward 
any  other  object.  It  has  exhausted  itself  in 
that  direction,  not  to  its  ceasing  to  live  in  that 
love,  for  cease  to  live  therein  it  cannot.  If  it 
abides  in  its  normal  state  and  the  coordinate 
soul  is  perfectly  fitted  by  corresponding  de- 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  125 

velopments  to  the  growing  estate  of  its  fellow- 
spirit,  it  will  never  cease  to  feel  that  here  it  has 
reached  its  created  being's  height.  The  only 
problem  unsolved  is,  is  this  the  love  of  its 
best  and  for  its  best  ?  If  not,  then  decay  and 
death  inevitably  come.  The  ages  leave  each 
counterpart  outgrown  by  the  other.  Such 
may  be  the  fate  of  all  created  loves.  Born, 
they  may  die  ;  beginning,  they  may  end  ;  of  and 
for  and  in  the  creature,  they  may  be  limited  by 
creatural,  that  is,  finite,  that  is,  perishable,  con- 
ditions. If  they  live  forever,  it  is  only  because 
they  live  in  God,  through  his  power  and  love 
who  keepeth  them. 

Only  one  true,  one  perfect  love  can  possess 
the  soul.  No  passion  for  a  human  being,  how- 
ever deep  and  tender  and  immeasurable,  can 
draw  out  the  whole  nature.  The  mother's  love 
feels  its  first  shock  when  she  learns  that  she  is 
third  at  last  in  the  list  of  loves,  wife  and  child 
being  preferred  before  her,  and  crowding  her 
from  her  long,  unquestioned  prominence.  So 
all  loves  may  find  their  end.  If  they  remain, 
they  are  found  in  God.  Only  one  love  may 
thus  exist — eternal ;  it  is  well ;  because  duality 
is  the  law  of  our   being,   and  duality  abides 


126  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

forever.  The  only  love  that  answers  every  crav- 
ing of  the  soul  is  the  love  of  God  ;  that  quick- 
ens it  in  all  its  nature  ;  that  moves  it  in  its 
lowest  depths.  The  moon  only  draws  the  sur- 
face of  the  sea  to  itself;  God  draws  the  entire 
being. 

Other  loves  have  relative  ranks  and  rivals. 
This  allows  none.  It  is  God  or  nothing.  If 
any  man  love  the  world  separate  from,  superior 
to,  God,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him. 
Jealous  beyond  the  conception  of  Othello's 
rage  is  our  Creator ;  his  anger  burns  against  all 
such  idolatry  to  the  lowest  hell. 

This  does  not  prevent  all  true  loves  flour- 
ishing to  their  uttermost.  It  requires  their  full 
activity.  They  are  in  God,  and  to  God,  while 
he  is  in  and  above  them  all,  God  blessed  for- 
ever. The  parent's  passion  glows  the  more 
purely  if  in  and  to  the  Lord  ;  the  lover's  sighs 
are  breathed  the  more  fervently  and  holily  if 
in  the  Lord  ;  the  holy  flame  of  wedlock  is  most 
perfect  when  the  Lord  is  in  the  center  of  its 
sacred  sweetness.  Love  for  knowledge — how 
delicious  when  the  devout  heart  pursues  the 
divine  investigations,  for  knowledge  is  all  di- 
vine,   a  part    of  the   all-knowledge    of   God. 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  127 

Even  fame  or  recognition  of  real  merit  may  be 
an  honorable  passion  if  it  raises  the  clear  spirit 
to  its  Creator ;  and  heroism  for  principle,  that 
highest  love  that  can  possess  the  soul  of  man, 
that  makes  him,  weeping,  set  down  his  babes 
and  unloose  the  embraces  of  his  wife,  that 
he  may  die  for  the  truth — is  not  that  found 
in  its  uttermost  of  perfection  when  that  heroic 
ardor  of  love  burns  for  the  Lord  Jesus?  John 
Brown  was  a  saint  of  high  degree — he  died  for 
man  ;  John  Huss  of  higher — he  died  for  the 
Lord  Jesus,  who  was  more  than  man.  These 
loves  are  all  blessed  when  in  the  Lord,  and 
then  only. 

Consider,  finally,  the  endurance  of  this  love. 
"The  world  passeth  away,  and  the  lust  thereof; 
but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth 
forever."  How  sad,  how  sure  that  truth — the 
world  passeth  away  and  the  lust  thereof! 
Where  now  is  the  world  of  the  days  of  John, 
and  where  its  lust  ?  I  have  sat  near  the  spot 
where  he  probably  wrote  those  words,  amid 
the  very  landscape  on  which  he  then  gazed. 
That  city  of  Ephesus,  the  richest  in  all  the 
East,  its  temple  so  imposing,  its  theater  so 
magnificent,  its  baths  so  luxurious,  its  bazars 


128  CI/KISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

SO  rich  and  thronged,  its  lust  of  pride  so  enor- 
mous— where  is  it  now  ?  A  few  broken 
marble  columns  stand  on  a  rude  hill,  shattered 
pillars  lie  in  confusion  around.  The  great 
arches  of  the  Roman  viaduct  yet  stretch  across 
the  plain  like  a  straggling,  routed  cohort  of  a 
once  grand  legion.  The  hills  that  rise  abruptly 
between  the  plain  and  the  shore,  once  crowded 
with  villas,  temples,  and  statues,  now  stand 
bare,  stripped  of  every  vestige  of  their  glory. 
The  great  temple  of  Diana  has  not  had  left 
one  stone  upon  another  that  is  not  cast  down. 
Cattle  graze  in  quietness  along  the  once 
crowded  thoroughfare,  and  the  Turkish. peasant 
turns  up  with  his  rude  plow  the  arena  where 
Paul  fought  with  wild  beasts,and  multitudes  of 
Christians,  all  known  of  men,  went  gloriously 
up  to  God  and  heaven.  The  world  passeth 
away.  But  more  than  the  change  in  the  face  of 
the  world  is  that  in  the  souls  of  those  then 
proud  and  lustful  there.  Where  are  they  now? 
The  last  has  passed  away  long  since  and  ut- 
terly. The  hills  and  valley  and  sea  and  sky 
remain  ;  John  could  still  know  Ephesus  by  its 
natural  features ;  but  where  are  its  men  ? 
Where  are  those  that  thronged  the  theater  and 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  129 

cried  for  a  day,  almost,  to  stop  the  mouth  of 
Paul,  "  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  ? " 
Where  are  the  Ephesians  or  their  great  god- 
dess ?  Where  the  silversmiths  with  Deme- 
trius at  their  head  ?  Where  the  fashionable 
loungers  in  the  baths?  Where  those  that  dis- 
dained God  and  desired  the  world  ?  Answer, 
O  poor,  fluttering,  wavering  heart,  that  wishes 
to  love  both  God  and  the  world  !  Their  lust 
went  before  their  world.  They  left  it,  not  it 
them.  So  must  we.  Not  before  you  die  will 
your  cities  become  what  Ephesus  is ;  you  will 
leave  them  probably  as  full  of  sin,  of  worldly 
fascination,  as  they  are  to-day;  but  lust  passes 
away,  passes  to  where  there  is  no  place  for 
its  indulgence,  where  it  rages  unsatisfied,  like 
the  troubled  sea,  without  rest,  yet  evermore 
casting  up  mire  and  dirt.  The  rich  man  longs 
for  water ;  the  appetite  remains,  but  not  the 
water  ;  he  probably  still  prefers  the  wine,  but 
no  wine  is  given  him. 

Cool  your  hot  lusts,  quench  them  rather,  in 
the  love  of  God  that  abideth  forever.  He  that 
doeth  his  will,  he  that  loveth  God  and  show- 
eth  his  love  by  his  works,  he  shall  live  and  love 

forever.     Death  hath  no  dominion  over  him. 
9 


180  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

It  is  but  the  entrance  gate  to  higher  life,  to 
more  ardent,  more  perfect,  more  rewarded 
love.  If  the  Lord  can  give  us  here  such  proof 
of  his  love,  such  objects  of  permitted  love  as 
the  scenes  and  odors  and  sounds  of  earth, 
as  the  thoughts  that  kindle  our  souls,  the  as- 
pirations that  uplift  them,  the  emotions  that 
thrill  them,  and,  above  all,  the  loves  that  satisfy 
and  well-nigh  satiate  them,  so  that  we  cry  even 
now  under  their  delirious  delight,  "  Stay  me 
with  flagons,  comfort  me  with  apples  :  for  I 
am  sick  of  love,"  how  much  more  will  he  rav- 
ish the  soul  loving  him  with  the  abundance  of 
eternal  love  !  Our  earthly  loves  will  not  die, 
but  increase  there  more  and  more.  We  shall 
love  there,  not  only  human  friends,  with  an 
unfathomable  ardor  such  as  we  never  knew 
here,  but  angels,  archangels,  cherubim,  sera- 
phim, all  the  ranks  and  races  of  heaven.  We 
shall  love  those  who  go  there  far  beyond  what 
we  ever  felt  upon  earth,  and  those  who  have 
always  dwelt  there  with  an  ardor  for  which 
earthly  affection  has  no  name. 

"  O  sweet  and  blessed  country, 

The  home  of  God's  elect ! 
O  sweet  and  blessed  country 

That  eager  hearts  expect !  " 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  131 

Still,  then,  as  now,  then,  more  than  now, 
above  all  these  blissful  passions,  in  them  all, 
through  them  all,  shall  we  love  our  God  and 
Saviour,  the  Beloved  of  all  holy  creatures,  the 
Beloved  to  eternity. 

O  my  brother,  can  you  hesitate  which  to 
love?  Whoever  hesitates  never  truly  loves. 
Debate  not ;  cast  yourself  at  his  feet,  into  his 
arms.  He  will  kindle  this  holy  flame  in  your 
soul ;  he  will  deliver  you  from  counter  and 
hostile  passions.  You  can  pass  among  them 
as  a  mother  with  her  child  in  her  arms  passes 
among  crowds  of  other  children  without  feel- 
ing a  divided  affection.     You  can  say, 

"  Henceforth  shall  no  profane  delight 
Pollute  this  consecrated  soul." 

You  will  leap  to  meet  his  kind  embrace ;  you 
will  run  in  the  way  of  his  commandments; 
you  will  be  ravished  with  his  love.  Let  the 
world  see  that  you  love  him  ;  glory  in  it.  The 
beginnings  of  all  human  true  love  are  in  a  sort 
of  shame.  We  shrink  from  confessing  the  pas- 
sion kindling  within  ;  we  are  ashamed  to  let  it 
be  known.  The  lover  at  the  first  hides  his 
love,  the  wedded  and  the  parent  theirs.  So 
is   it   in    this  hiehest  love.     But   as   in  these 


132"  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

earthly  affections  they  cannot  be  repressed, 
and  delight  at  last  in  exhibiting  themselves  to 
all  the  world,  and,  if  they  can,  write  themselves 
into  verse  and  thrust  themselves  into  the  eye 
of  strangers  and  of  futurity,  so  this  highest 
passion  may  begin  in  a  sense  of  shamef.  It 
shrinks  from  confessing  Christ ;  it  is  ashamed 
of  Jesus.  It  visits  him  at  night ;  it  fears  the 
scorn  of  the  world.  But  when  once  aflame  it 
glories  in  revealing  itself.  It  proclaims  itself 
everywhere  and  to  everybody.  It  makes  its 
recipient  go  among  neighbors  and  kinsfolk, 
arise  in  crowded  assemblies,  ascend  the  pulpit, 
fly  to  foreign  and  pestilential  lands,  stand 
serenely  before  hostile  magistrates,  enter  the 
dens  of  lions, 

"  Clasp  the  cross  with  a  light  laugh, 

Or  wrap  the  burning  robe  round,  praising  God." 

Such  love  will  only  glow  the  brighter  when 
these  tests  of  its  vigor  fail  to  weaken,  and  aid 
in  strengthening  it.  It  will  burn  like  a  star  in 
the  eternal  heavens  and  respond  forever  to  the 
infinite  love  of  its  divine  Lover,  the  Lord  our 
God. 

Love,  then,  the  Lord  your  God  with  all  your 
might  and  mind  and  strength,  and  he  will  love 


MAN  FAILS,  GOD  ABIDES.  133 

you  with  all  his  might  and  mind  and  strength. 
He  will  come  and  take  up  his  abode  in  you. 
He  will  bear  you  in  his  arms  amid  the  losses 
and  sorrows  of  this  transient  time,  beam  upon 
you  with  serene  and  tender  regard,  accompany 
you  4:hrough  the  last  portal  of  earth  and  the 
first  of  heaven,  and  be  your  Companion,  your 
Lover,  through  the  realm  of  the  ages  of  eternity. 


"And  he  took  them  up  in  his  arms,  put  his  hands  upon 
them,  and  blessed  them." — Mark  x,  i6. 

"  Not  of  adamant  and  gold 
Built  God  heaven,  stark  and  cold  ; 
No,  but  a  nest  of  bending  reeds, 
Flowering  grass,  and  scented  weeds  ; 
Or  like  a  traveler's  fleeing  tent, 
Or  bow  above  the  tempest  bent ; 
Built  of  tears  and  sacred  flames, 
And  virtue  reaching  to  its  aims  ; 
Built  of  furtherance  and  pursuing  ; 
Not  of  spent  deeds,  but  of  doing. 
Silent  rushes  the  swift  Lord 
Through  ruined  systems  still  restored, 
Broad  sowing,  bleak  and  void  to  bless, 
Plants  with  worlds  the  wilderness, 
Waters  with  tears  of  ancient  sorrow 
Apples  of  Eden  ripe  to-morrow. 
House,  not  tenant,  goes  to  ground 
Raised  to  God.     In  Godhead  found." 


V. 

TAKING  CHILDREN   IN  HIS   ARMS. 

A  PICTURE  hangs  on  the  walls  of  the 
■^^-  National  Gallery  of  England  combining, 
it  is  said,  more  of  genius,  science,  art,  and  re- 
ligion than  have  been  witnessed  in  any  painting 
for  more  than  four  centuries.  Yet  scarcely 
one  of  the  crowd  of  gazers  fixes  seeing  and 
feeling  eyes  upon  it.  The  commonplace 
productions  of  commonplace  talent  fill  the 
measure  of  their  sight  and  soul,  and  the 
heights  and  depths  of  truth,  beauty,  and  power 
which  this  one  painting  alone  embodies  are 
unpierced,  unperceived  by  them.  So  the  mar- 
velous work  which  only  the  genius,  science, 
art,  and  love  of  God  could  produce,  a  little  child, 
placed  in  the  gallery  of  human  products, 
attracts  slight  attention,  is  passed  by  with  a 
glance,  while  a  crystal  palace,  a  monster  ship, 
a  great  city,  or  an  eclipse  draws  crowds  of 
overwhelmed  spectators,  and  the  most  com- 
mon objects  and  incidents  of  the  paltriest  life 
are  subjects  of  constant  notice    and   remark. 


136  CHRIST  US  CO  K SO  LA  TOR. 

As  this  little  one,  fashioned  of  the  dust  of 
the  earth  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  is  thus 
neglected  while  placed  before  our  eyes,  so 
when  the  great  Artist  destroys  its  marvels  with 
one  dash  of  his  pencil,  takes  it  down  from  the 
wall,  and  hides  it  in  that  cellar  of  humanity, 
the  grave,  its  absence  occasions  as  little  remark 
as  its  presence  had  done.  Why  it  is  gone, 
whither  it  has  gone,  are  questions  curiosity 
rarely  suggests.  A  few  who  happened  in  its 
neighborhood  when  the  catastrophe  occurred 
noticed  the  act  of  removal,  though  not  the  gap 
made  by  it,  and  may  have  felt  one  throb  of 
sympathy  for  the  disappointed  owner,  none  for 
the  lost  and  ruined  work. 

The  death  of  a  man  is  noticed,  because  an 
impress  has  been  made  by  him  on  the  sur- 
rounding community.  Every  one  has  had 
his  own  nature  modified  more  or  less  by  his 
influence ;  every  one,  therefore,  feels  that  a 
part  of  himself,  of  his  substance  and  his  daily 
life,  has  disappeared,  and  a  momentary  sense 
of  loss  shadows  and  shakes  his  soul.  Wher- 
ever this  impress  has  not  been  made,  death 
makes  none.  Your  neighbor  may  die  and 
your  soul  darken  and  droop  beneath  the  loss. 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        187 

but  a  little  farther  the  blow  has  expended  its 
force.  No  sense  of  the  loss  and  no  thought  of 
the  dead  is  found  there.  Death  in  the  coun- 
try, like  sound  and  light  and  air,  moves  over  a 
much  larger  surface  than  in  the  city  before  its 
momentum  expires.  So,  too,  the  death  of  the 
aged  reaches  farther  than  the  death  of  chil- 
dren. 

In  the  chamber  separated  from  you  by  the 
breadth  of  two  bricks  a  man  or  woman,  head 
of  a  large  family,  may  be  dying  and  you  be  as 
unaffected  as  though  it  were  a  flower  or  a  fly. 
I  sat  with  friends  in  St.  Louis  dining  and 
chatting  through  an  afternoon.  At  nightfall 
word  came  that  the  husband  of  the  household 
adjoining,  in  a  room  only  one  thickness  of 
brick  from  us,  had  been  dying  all  that  time 
we  were  chatting  so  pleasantly,  and  was  then 
lying  dead.  Why  is  this  insensibility  ?  Be- 
cause the  density  of  the  population  contracts 
the  range  of  our  sympathies,  and  that  family 
whom  that  thin  wall  separated  from  us  was 
farther  from  us  than  if  five  miles  away  in  a 
thinly  settled  village  or  fifty  miles  on  the 
frontiers  of  civilization. 

Hundreds  of  souls  go  down  on  our  coast  in 


138  CHRIST  US  CONSOLATOR. 

a  single  ship  and  night,  and  possibly,  though 
you  read  the  incident  in  a  brief  hne  of  the 
newspaper,  the  fact  has  so  sHghtly  affected  the 
memory  that  you  could  not  after  a  little  recall 
it.  A  steamer  starts  from  Europe  and  is  never 
heard  from.  Its  freight  of  hundreds  of  human 
beings  has  been  whelmed  \\\  terror  and  agony 
and  death,  but  no  sympathetic  terror  or  agony 
has  startled  our  soul  even  for  a  moment. 
Thousands  and  thousands  of  Russians  and 
Turks  went  to  that  awful,  silent  judgment  seat 
from  the  roar  and  dust  and  groans  of  the  bat- 
tlefield, but  your  soul  was  sensible  of  no 
change  in  its  pulsations  as  you  glanced  at  the 
narratives  of  those  deathbeds. 

Thus  it  always  is.  Unless  we  find  ourselves 
united  by  some  tie  of  nature,  or  office,  or  expe- 
rience with  the  dead,  death  is  apt  to  be  an  im- 
pressionless  event  to  us.  Had  Dickens  been 
aboard  that  steamer,  each  of  us  would  have 
been  full  of  zeal  and  knowledge  concerning 
the  catastrophe,  because  he  had  made  himself 
a  part  of  our  being  by  the  children  of  his  soul, 
his  by  birth,  ours  by  adoption.  Had  General 
Grant  fallen  on  one  of  those  European  fields  of 
death,  we  should  have  all  felt  the  fall  because 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        139 

he  had  become  a  part  of  our  feelings  and 
thoughts,  an  element  and  portion  of  our  spir- 
its' growth. 

So  the  lack  of  these  connective  influences  in 
infants  makes  us  insensible  as  to  their  death. 
The  child  playing  at  our  door  may  have  more 
than  once  revived  our  weary  hearts  with  its 
uncareful  merriment,  more  than  once  feasted 
our  craving  for  the  beautiful,  the  unearthly,  by 
its  unconscious  loveliness,  its  heaven-revealing 
gladness  and  goodness.  That  child,  dead,  is 
the  filling  with  desert  dust  one  of  the  fountains 
which  was  refreshing  our  wilderness  wander- 
ings, is  the  dropping  of  a  black  and  pierceless 
veil  over  an  opening  through  which  heaven 
shone  in  upon  us  and  we  looked  up  into 
heaven.  We  feel  the  pang ;  our  very  being 
has  been  invaded.  Death  has  smitten  us  in 
the  vitals.  An  infant  gives  no  such  shock.  He 
has  not  fed  our  lasting  lives  daily  with  his  fresh 
heavenly  manna.  He  has  no  conscious  vital 
connection  with  us.  His  death  sheds  no  mor- 
tal shudderings  through  our  soul. 

All  this  is  wrong.  It  is  a  perversion  of  our 
nature.  God  never  made  it  so  contracted.  The 
Pacific  Islander  eats  but  one  kind  of  food  cooked 


140  CHRISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

in  but  one  way.  So  the  coolie  of  India  lives 
on  rice  alone,  the  serf  of  Ireland  on  the  po- 
tato, the  peasant  of  Italy  on  maccaroni  ;  but 
the  more  cultivated  we  become  the  wider  is 
the  range  both  of  articles  for  food  and  modes 
of  preparing  them  for  our  use.  The  appetite 
grows  in  sensitiveness,  looks  on  all  nature  as 
appointed  for  its  physical  sustenance,  appre- 
hends the  declaration  made  by  its  Creator  to 
Adam  and  Noah,  "  Behold,  I  have  given  you 
every  herb  bearing  seed,  which  is  upon  the 
face  of  all  the  earth,  and  every  tree,  in  the 
which  is  the  fruit  of  a  tree  yielding  seed  ;  to 
you  it  shall  be  for  meat.  .  .  .  Every  moving 
thing  that  liveth  shall  be  meat  for  you  ;  even  as 
the  green  herb  have  I  given  you  all  things." 

So  the  soul  wrought  upon  by  the  wisdom 
and  the  grace  of  God  becomes  alive  to  all  the 
joys  and  sorrows,  the  sentiments  and  thoughts, 
of  every  other  soul,  dwells  with  the  infant  on 
the  shoulders  of  his  Indian  mother  or  in  the 
cradle  of  royal  luxury',  with  the  child  playing 
under  Africa's  palms  or  in  his  own  garden,  the 
youth  dreamy  and  hopeful  in  Arabia  or  Amer- 
ica, the  man  or  woman,  white,  black,  or  red, 
that  lives   in    sadness  or  joy,  in    comfort    or 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        141 

misery,  over  the  whole  earth.  Yea,  more  ;  our 
natures,  rightly  working,  feed  on  the  blisses 
of  the  holy  departed  of  all  ages,  mingle  sadly 
yet  salutarily  with  the  unholy  departed  of 
every  age,  rise  into  higher,  dive  into  lower 
ranks  of  creation,  and  rest  at  last,  rest  in  the 
perpetual  but  peaceful  motion  of  our  whole 
being,  in  the  center  and  source  of  all  activity, 
of  all  creation — God. 

In  the  shadow  of  a  great  affliction,  at  the 
table  where  for  hour  after  hour  lay  the  body 
but  just  abandoned  by  an  infant  immortal, 
I  write,  partly  as  a  memorial  of  him,  part- 
ly to  bring  to  a  focus  in  my  own  soul  the 
rays  of  heaven  scattered  through  the  valley  of 
the  shadow  of  death  wherein  I  have  been 
walking ;  partly  to  console  those  over  whom 
have  passed  like  waves  of  sorrow,  whose  founts 
of  love,  opened  by  sympathy  in  this  bereave- 
ment, pour  forth  oyer  their  own  hearts  the 
lifeblood  of  affection  as  fresh  and  agonizing 
as  in  the  hours  when  thdir  hearts  were  first 
pierced  through  with  this  sorrow;  partly  to 
awaken,  if  possible,  in  each  of  us  a  sense,  quick 
and  weighty,  of  the  truths  which  God  pub- 
lishes afresh  to  us  with  every  such  event,  and 


142  CHRISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

which  are  as  valuable,  and  can  be  used  as 
profitably,  if  announced  through  infant  suffer- 
ings, death,  and  glory,  as  though  written  before 
us  in  the  death  of  the  aged,  the  honored,  the 
mighty.  A  little  child  shall  lead  them.  May 
it  lead  us,  submissive  and  reverent,  into  the 
gallery  of  God's  truths,  into  the  deep  and 
holy  feelings  those  truths  would  fain  induce 
and  develop ! 

The  wiser  one  becomes  in  any  branch  of 
knowledge,  the  more  does  he  neglect  the  large 
and  observe  the  small ;  the  more  does  he 
see  in  the  small  the  larger.  Men,  untrained, 
possess  no  such  discrimination ;  they  are  af- 
fected by  the  huge,  but  they  pass  coldly  by 
the  minute.  A  mountain,  not  a  pebble,  a  for- 
est,  not  a  grass-blade,  the  ocean,  not  a  globule 
of  water,  attracts  them.  Not  so  the  studious, 
growing  mind.  Whatever  department  it  works 
in — mechanics,  art,  science,  philosophy — every- 
where the  real  thinker  is  seen  in  his  neglect  for 
the  mass  and  his  attention  to  the  atom.  One 
analyzes,  analyzes,  till  he  finds  a  universal  law, 
working  perfectly  and  gloriously  in  the  falling 
apple  ;  another  crystallizes  the  microscopic  dia- 
mond particle ;  another  combines  elements  to 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        143 

the  composition  of  one  drop  of  water ;  another 
employs  vast  assimilative  powers  and  processes 
to  endeavor  to  construct  a  living  mustard  seed. 
As  the  enlightened  curiosity  has  worked  in  the 
mind  of  the  scholar,  so  parental  instincts  oper- 
ate in  respect  to  the  infant.  As  every  truth  con- 
cerning any  creature  lies  condensed  in  every 
particle  of  that  truth,  so  lies  the  whole  of 
man  in  the  babe  ;  and  nature,  or  Father,  the 
God  of  nature,  places  in  parental  hearts  the  very 
impulse  and  intelligence  that  in  a  far  inferior 
degree,  and  of  a  far  lower  character,  lead  the 
scholar  to  the  perception  of  the  laws  of  crea- 
tive working. 

Far  lower  in  character  and  degree,  I  say  ;  for 
what  was  ever  brought  before  man  in  the 
realms  of  matter  comparable  to  a  human  body? 
And  how  infinitely  this  falls  below  the  human 
soul !  Agassiz  devoted  his  great  mind  and 
great  knowledge  to  the  study  of  the  traits  and 
distinctions  of  fishes,  Linnaeus  of  plants,  Au- 
dubon  of  birds,  Cuvier  and  Owen  of  beasts, 
Hitchcock  of  rocks,  Newton  of  light ;  the  high- 
est students  only  dwell  upon  the  laws  of  mind. 
But  to  the  parent  is  given  the  study  of  the 
finest  and  most  wonderful  of  material  products, 


144  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

beside  which  birds  and  beasts  and  rocks  and 
trees  are  gross  and  mean  ;  and  to  this,  what 
is  more,  the  study  of  the  development  of  a 
spirit,  the  image  of  God.  They  can  at  once 
see  its  present  perfection  and  its  future  growth 
and  glory.  As  it  lies  in  their  arms  do  they  not 
see  the  perfect  features  of  the  man,  as  beauti- 
ful in  their  perfection  as  if  expanded  into  their 
full  and  ultimate  growth  ?  Is  not  every  limb, 
muscle,  tendon,  bone,  as  exquisitely  wrought 
and  fitted  ?  Does  not  every  feature  of  the 
face  speak  the  same  workman  as  if  in  gigantic 
proportions?  Does  not  the  head,  emblem  of 
the  perfection  of  the  whole  body,  round  off  and 
crown  the  whole  with  its  complete  mechanism 
and  its  lofty  suggestions?  And  if  you  look 
within  those  eyes,  gleams  there  not  forth  the 
same  fire  of  thought  and  feeling  that  maturer 
years  and  experiences  kindle?  Plays  not  a? 
perfect  a  smile  around  those  cheeks,  flows  not 
as  perfect  laughter  from  those  lips  ?  Love  and 
thought  lie  lustrous  in  the  depths  of  those 
eyes.  The  soul,  the  immortal,  the  divine 
soul,  you  see  at  the  bottom  of  those  clear 
founts,  as  pearls  and  diamonds  through  pellu- 
cid waves. 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        145 

••  Fair  the  soul's  recess  and  shrine, 

Magic  built,  to  last  a  season  ; 
Masterpiece  of  love  divine, 

Fairer  than  expansive." 

Can  a  parent  be  aught  else  than  the  wisest 
of  students  if  he  bends  with  loving  scrutiny 
over  this  work  of  God  ?  Can  he  be  acting 
otherwise  than  in  accordance  with  the  divine 
Being  in  thus  dwelling  in  studious  admiration 
over  that  upon  which  God  ponders,  which  God 
watches,  admires,  pronounces  very  good  ? 

Parental  love  not  only  feasts  on  the  treasure 

for  what  it  is,  but  for  what  it  is  to  be.     If  the 

development  theory  were  a  true  one  ;  if  stone 

grew  into  tree,  tree  to  reptile,  reptile  to  fish, 

fish  to  bird,  bird  to  beast,  beast  to  man  ;  if  the 

naturalist   has  found    clear  proof  of  some  of 

these  transmigrations,  how  greatly  would  their 

zeal  be  increased  to  detect  the  phenomena  and 

laws  of  that  expansion  !    But  they  see  no  such 

realities   to    their   dreams.      Impassable  walls 

engirt  every  order,  and  each  member  of  his 

order  fully  reveals  the  whole.      The  youngest 

is  as  the  oldest.     No  such  limit  is  imposed  on 

man.     The  infant  humanity  can  fill  the  whole 

heaven  of   parental    hopes  with    dreams  and 

visions  of  the  future — not  schemes  of  ambition, 
10 


146  CHRISTUS  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

but  promptings  of  the  judgment  colored  with 
the  hues  of  a  wise  though  loving  fancy.  He 
sees  that  soul  tasting  of  knowledge,  little  and 
weak,  as  that  which  feeds  its  body  ;  growing  in 
strength,  demanding  larger  and  stronger  sup- 
plies ;  sipping  wisdom  like  the  bee  from  the 
flower,  the  tree,  the  sky — every  object  in  na- 
ture and  in  art ;  getting  glimmerings  of  con- 
versation, of  communion  with  spirits  by  other 
processes  than  the  eye  and  hand  afford ;  ab- 
sorbing into  its  mind  the  alphabetical  ele- 
ments, combining  them,  using  them  for  the 
body  of  its  ideas  and  feelings  ;  bringing  forth 
from  the  treasure-house  of  the  soul  these  new 
creations  of  spirit  ;  feeding  these  creative  fac- 
ulties by  observation,  by  conversation,  by  read- 
ing ;  learning  that  itself  and  surrounding  souls 
are  not  the  only  beings  of  like  nature  on  the 
earth,  that  for  myriads  and  myriads  of  hours 
there  have  been  breathing  this  air  not  only 
those  like  itself,  but  related  to  itself,  held 
all  in  the  arms  of  one  father  and  mother ; 
learning  the  yet  more  startling  truth  that  al- 
most all  that  multitude  of  relatives  has  left 
the  earth  and  gone  no  one  knows  whither,  are 
engaged  no  one  knows  how  ;  feeling  in  its  tiny 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        147 

spirit  promptings  to  sin  ;  learning  how  gener- 
ally and  awfully  those  promptings  have  pre- 
vailed, how  its  Creator,  the  God  of  the  uni- 
verse, has  come  into  such  a  little  body  as  its 
that  he  might  give  it,  and  all,  the  chance  of 
escaping  from  these  sins,  how  he  has  put  a 
Book  into  the  world  abounding  in  marvelous 
truths  and  clear  commands  that  are  intended 
to  aid  it  in  growing  in  holiness  and  wisdom  ; 
looking  out  from  this  spot  of  time  on  the 
vastness  of  eternity ;  looking  up  from  this 
state  of  mixed  light  and  darkness  into  the 
heavens  of  holy  light,  down  into  the  seat  of 
awful  darkness — these  and  multitudes  of  similar 
truths  are  to  be  imparted  to  that  soul.  Is  there 
not  a  space  of  amplest  breadth  for  the  growth 
and  flourishing  of  every  hope  and  desire  ? 
God  creates  that  soul,  it  is  true.  God  gives  it 
its  powers  and  capacities.  God  gives  the  in- 
crease of  those  powers.  Yet  he  has  marvel- 
ously  arranged  it  so  that  they  seem  to  be 
given  to  the  parental  hand  to  bring  into  being. 
They  lie  asleep,  dead,  till  his  or  another's  touch 
calls  them  to  life. 

The  babe  of  heathenism  is  of  closest  kindred 
with  the  child  of  Christendom  ;  that  poor,  ig- 


148  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

norant  Bushman  or  Eskimo  infant  has  the 
capacities  of  him  whose  brain  calls  Words- 
worth its  father.  The  one  lies  shut  up  in  cells 
of  darkness,  the  other  is  led  forth  into  light. 
God  makes  the  parent,  in  effect,  a  creator  of 
the  soul  of  the  child,  and  he  can  exultingly 
assume  the  charge  and  hopefully  undertake  it. 
Parental  comforts  find  their  present  and  espe- 
cially their  prospective  homes  in  their  children. 
They  enjoy  the  reciprocity  which  has  already 
begun,  the  tiny  recognition  repaying  every 
sacrifice  and  toil.  They  see  the  day  when,  ere 
long,  larger  responses  will  be  made.  They 
dwell  on  the  hour  when  equality  of  thought 
and  feeling  shall  make  the  babe  a  perfect  com- 
panion and  associate ;  when  their  growing 
weakness  shall  be  more  than  replaced  by  its 
fiery  energies  ;  and  farther  yet,  when,  as  age 
shall  enfeeble  all  their  powers  and  death  be 
busy  finishing  up  the  work  he  has  never  neg- 
lected all  their  lives,  the  strong  arms  of  the 
infant,  as  loving  as  when  they  clasped  their 
neck  in  its  early  helplessness,  as  strong  as 
theirs  when  then  bearing  him,  shall  support 
the  dying  head,  shall  compose  the  dead  body, 
shall  lay  it  in  tender  sorrow  and  cheerful  hope 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        149 

to  sleep  away  the  fatigues  and  infirmities  of 
life  and  to  rise  in  vigor  and  beauty  undying  at 
the  coming  of  Christ.  This  love,  this  hope, 
this  anticipated  duty,  this  comfort — all  these, 
in  their  vast  and  varied  workings,  are  found  in 
full  action  in  the  parental  heart,  while  infantile 
helplessness,  ignorance,  and  innocence  slumbers 
or  smiles  upon  it.  Hence  the  word  of  God  has 
but  few  words  repeated  as  often  as  the  word 
children,  and  makes  but  few  references  either 
in  the  way  of  doctrine  or  entreaty  more  fre- 
quently or  powerfully  than  those  pertaining  to 
the  parental  relation.  Hence,  too,  his  favorite 
disclosure  of  himself  as  our  Father  and  Christ 
as  his  only-begotten  and  well-beloved  Son. 
With  insight  into  this  truth  the  heavenly  hosts 
shouted  over  the  Infant  cradle  and  wise  men 
knelt  in  adoration  and  poured  forth  gifts. 
Hence  every  great  uninspired  seer  has  honored 
the  infant  man  as  highly  as  the  adult  man. 
Says  the  great  Shakespeare  : 

*'  And  in  such  indexes,  although  small  pricks 
To  their  subsequent  volumes,  there  is  seen 
The  baby  figure  of  the  giant  mass 
Of  things  to  come  at  large." 

Hence  exclaims  the  poet,  at  once  the  most 
human  in  his  sensibilities,  the  most  divine  in 


150  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

his  musings,  of  all  those  whose  thoughts 
move  in  harmonious  numbers,  looking  on  an 
infant  child  : 

"  Thou  whose  exterior  semblance  dolh  belie 

Thy  soul's  immensity  ! 
Thou  best  philosopher  who  yet  dost  keep 
Thy  heritage  !     Thou  eye  among  the  blind, 
That,  deaf  and  silent,  read'st  the  eternal  deep 
Haunted  forever  by  the  eternal  mind  ! 

Mighty  prophet !  seer  blest ! 
On  whom  those  truths  do  rest 
Which  we  are  toiling  all  our  lives  to  find  : 
In  darkness  lost,  the  darkness  of  the  grave ; 
Thou  over  whom  thy  immortality 
Broods  like  the  day — a  master  o'er  a  slave — 
A  presence  which  is  not  to  be  put  by  ; 
Thou  little  child,  yet  glorious  in  the  light 
Of  heaven-born  freedom  on  thy  being's  height." 

And  one,  the  greatest  of  living  thinkers,  ex- 
claims, as  his  mind  pierces  the  mists  of  the 
heart,  made  by  his  blinding  tears  like  the  sun 
shining  through  the  shower : 

"  The  south  winds  bring  their  precious  gifts, 

Life,  sunshine,  and  desire  ; 

And  on  every  mount  and  meadow 

Breathes  aromatic  fire. 

But  over  the  dead  he  has  no  power. 

The  lost,  the  lost  he  cannot  restore ; 

And  looking  over  the  hills  I  mourn 

The  darling  who  shall  not  return. 

I  see  my  empty  house, 

I  see  my  trees  repair  their  boughs  ; 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.       151 

But  he,  the  wondrous  child. 

Whose  silver  warble  wild 

Outvalued  every  passing  sound 

Within  the  air's  cerulean  round, 

The  hyacinthine  boy,  for  whom 

Iron  well  might  break  and  April  bloom. 

The  gracious  boy  who  did  adorn 

The  world  whereinto  he  was  bom, 

And  by  his  countenance  repay 

The  favor  of  the  loving  day. 

Has  disappeared  from  the  Day's  eye. 

Far  and  wide  she  cannot  find  him  ; 

My  hopes  pursue,  they  cannot  bind  him. 

Returned  this  day,  the  south  wind  searches. 

And  finds  young  pines  and  budding  birches, 

But  finds  not  the  budding  man." 

Again  he  cries  out : 

"  Not  mine  ;  I  never  called  thee  mine, 

But  nature's  heir ;  if  I  repine 

It  is  because  a  general  hope 

Was  quenched,  and  all  must  doubt  and  grope. 

For  flattering  planets  seemed  to  say 

This  child  should  ills  of  ages  stay  ; 

By  wondrous  tongue  and  guided  pen 

Bring  the  flown  muses  back  to  men." 

And  with  strict  unity  with  parental  grief  and 
prophecy  he  bursts  forth: 

"  O  child  of  Paradise. 

Boy  who  made  dear  his  father's  home. 

In  whose  deep  eyes 

Was  read  the  welfare  of  the  time  to  come  ! 

I  am  too  much  bereft ; 

The  world  dishonored  thou  hast  left. 


152  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

O  truth's  and  nature's  costly  lie  ! 
O  trusted  broken  prophecy  ! 
O  richest  fortune  sourly  crossed  ! 
Born  for  the  future,  to  the  future  lost" 

Another  hopefully  exclaims : 

"  O  child  !  O  new-bom  denizen 

Of  life's  great  city  !     On  thy  head 

The  glory  of  the  mom  is  shed 

Like  a  celestial  benison. 

Here  at  the  portal  thou  dost  stand, 

And  with  thy  little  hand 

Thou  openest  the  mysterious  gate 

Into  the  future's  undiscovered  land. 

Like  the  new  moon,  thy  life  appears 

A  little  strip  of  silver  light. 

And  widening  outward  into  night 

The  shadowy  disk  of  future  years  ; 

And  yet  upon  its  outer  rim 

A  luminous  circle,  faint  and  dim. 

And  scarcely  visible  to  us  here, 

Rounds  and  completes  the  perfect  year ; 

A  prophecy  and  intimation, 

A  pale  and  feeble  admiration, 

Of  the  great  world  of  light  that  lies 

Behind  all  human  destinies." 

And  yet  another  bursts  forth  : 

*'  O  thou  !  briglit  thing  fresh  from  the  hand  of  God  ! 

The  motion  of  thy  dancing  limbs  is  swayed 

By  the  unceasing  music  of  thy  being  ; 

Nearer  I  seem  to  God  when  looking  on  thee. 

*Tis  ages  since  he  made  his  youngest  star  ; 

His  hand  was  on  thee  as  'twere  yesterday. 

Thou  later  Revelation  !     Silver  streams  divine 

Breaking  with  laughter  from  the  lake 

Whence  all  things  flow,  O  bright  and  singing  child  !" 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        153 

From  these  movings  of  the  heart  and  the 
judgment  in  the  great  representatives  of  hu- 
manity, from  the  words  of  our  blessed  Lord, 
from  the  natural  and  God-implanted  workings 
of  parental  hearts,  come  rebukes  to  the  care- 
less and  stolid  and  contemptuous  manner  in 
which  we  are  apt  to  treat  the  youngest  of  im- 
mortal souls — angels  of  God  in  the  beginning 
of  their  creation. 

The  microscope  is  as  marvelous  as  the 
telescope,  the  worlds  unveiled  by  it  as  full 
of  life,  of  wisdom,  of  goodness,  of  power,  as 
those  swinging  before  the  larger  eye  of  its 
brother.  Though  you  were  permitted  to  stand 
before  the  angel  Gabriel,  though  you  mingled 
in  free  and  yet  teachable  intercourse  with  Paul, 
the  knowledge  gained  from  their  sublimated 
and  exalted  natures  is  no  higher,  no  purer, 
no  richer,  no  sweeter,  than  that  gleaned  from 
faithful  and  reverent  devotion  to  their  young- 
est brethren — the  babe  Gabriel  or  Paul  that 
folds  its  shining  wings,  covers  them  with  the 
dust  of  earth,  and  by  the  slow  and  feeble  steps 
of  mortality  grows  to  its  archangelic  expansion. 

But  if  a  child  is  an  immortal  soul  at  the  dawn 
of  its  being,  and  if  God  has  put  such  treasures 


154  CHRISTUS  CONSOLA  TOR. 

in  earthen  vessels  and  placed  them  among 
earthen  vessels,  we  may  properly  ask,  Is 
there  any  reason  discernible  for  the  frequency 
with  which  these  vessels  are  broken?  If  he 
honors  parental  feelings  by  declaring  himself 
the  Parent  of  parents,  and  rewards  their  indul- 
gence with  the  streams  of  joy  that,  quenchless 
and  fathomless,  flood  their  hearts,  well  may  we 
ask,  Why  break  those  exquisite  though  clayey 
bodies  ?  Why  does  his  parental  foot  trample  on 
every  parental  sensibility?  Why  place  black 
gates  of  death  between  those  tides  of  human 
feeling  and  their  desired,  their  necessary,  reser- 
voir? Why  shall  He  who  sets  the  solitary  in 
families  make  the  family  a  solitude  ?  Many  a 
bleeding  heart,  since  Adam  and  Eve  bowed  in 
speechless  woe  over  their  stricken  Abel,  has 
cried  out  as  if  reproaching  heaven  and  earth : 

"  Was  there  no  star  that  could  be  sent, 
No  watcher  in  the  firmament. 
No  angel  from  the  countless  host 
That  loiters  round  the  crystal  coast. 
Could  stoop  to  heal  that  darling  child, 
Nature's  sweet  marvel,  undefiled, 
And  keep  the  blossom  on  the  earth 
Which  all  her  harvests  were  not  worth?" 

Let  us  try  to  see  if  there  are  possible  tokens 
of  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  God,  both  to 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.       155 

parents  and  children,  in  such  an  early  separa- 
tion. 

It  is  a  blessing  to  the  child  physically. 
The  load  of  the  flesh  is  a  wearisome  burden. 
It  is  a  coffin  that  the  soul  ever  carries  with  it. 
Like  the  shirt  of  Nessus,  burning  the  body  it 
covered,  it  burns  and  wastes  the  spirit.  It  is  a 
vehicle  of  disease  and  suffering  and  helpless- 
ness. The  body  craves  rest  and  stupefies  the 
spirit  in  its  nightly  stagnations.  The  body  ab- 
sorbs heat,  and  the  spirit  thrills  with  fire  ;  cold, 
and  it  shivers  as  if  pent  in  ice.  It  breathes 
poisons,  and  the  spirit  reels  with  faintness.  It 
drinks  or  eats,  and  the  soul  staggers  or  lies 
stupid  by  its  surfeitings.  The  body  is,  at  the 
highest,  of  the  earth,  earthy;  its  highest  aims 
are,  "  What  shall  I  eat  ?  what  shall  I  drink  ? 
wherewithal  shall  I  be  clothed  ?  "  It  works  on 
the  farm,  in  the  shop,  the  store.  It  makes  the 
soul  its  slave  and  teaches  her  to  coin  her  wit 
into  bread  and  clothing  for  itself,  makes  her 
invent  processes  for  more  largely  supplying  its 
wants,  and  exhaust  herself  in  devising  means 
for  gathering  dust,  and  looks  out  on  the  field, 
through  the  factory,  the  shelves  of  the  store- 
house, as  the   widest  allowable  range  for  her 


156  CHRISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

faculties.  Multitudes  on  multitudes  thus  feel 
the  weight  of  these  chains  of  flesh.  Thus  are 
our  young  aspirations  crushed,  and  we  work 
under  the  lash  of  base  appetites  of  hunger  and 
gain  till  we  are  as  incapable  of  seeing  any  su- 
per-earthly, spiritual,  immortal  essence  within 
us  as  is  the  vilest  slave  driver  in  his  vilest  slave. 
From  this  dread  degradation  the  heaven- 
called  child  is  released.  That  son  shall  not  go 
into  the  far  country  of  bodily  passions  and 
lusts  and  feed  swine.  He  will  not  feel  the  ra- 
gings  of  disease  more  intense  than  the  body  it- 
self can  feel.  He  will  not  parch  with  thirst, 
rage  with  hunger,  burn  with  heat,  freeze  with 
cold,  throb  with  pain  in  head  or  heart  or  any 
other  part  of  the  body  ;  he  will  not  be  enslaved 
to  his  own  servant,  the  gross  duties  of  this  life, 
and,  what  is  worse,  as  almost  all  his  kindred 
do  who  are  left  on  earth  for  a  little  season,  fall 
in  love  with  its  bondage,  crave  gold  and  land 
and  goods  and  houses  and  stuff  to  tickle  the 
palate  and  fantastic  vanities  to  cover  the  body, 
and  thus  be  filled  with  the  lust  of  money,  of 
dress,  of  food,  of  every  bodily  appetite.  That 
spirit,  thanks  be  to  God,  has  escaped  all  this, 
and  when  its  body  is  given  him  again  he  will 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        157 

find  no  tendencies  within,  nor  customs  around 
him,  to  produce  so  loathsome  yet  so  sadly  uni- 
versal a  defilement. 

Again,  God's  goodness  and  wisdom  are  seen 
in  the  mental  privileges  secured  by  death.  He 
wishes  to  give  the  mind  a  fitting  development 
by  making  it  rightly  apprehend  appropriate 
truths.  Where  can  such  opportunities  be  given 
it  as  in  heaven  ?  Our  science  is  yet  childish  in 
its  attainments,  is  mixed  with  error,  abounds 
in  absurdities,  has  no  perceived  bond  of  union 
connecting  all  branches  in  fitting  proportions 
and  harmony.  There  is  a  scrap  of  knowledge 
here  and  there,  a  rag  or  two  of  the  robe  of 
truth  which  no  skill  of  ours  can  form  into  its 
lustrous  garment  or  even  neatly  or  naturally  join 
together.  The  mind  must  in  its  best  estate  and 
advantages  grow  amid  great  ignorance,  intro- 
duce into  its  composition  great  errors,  and  be 
but  dwarfish  and  deformed.  We  fall  down 
before  some  minds  as  though  possessed  of 
miraculous  attainments  and  power  ;  it  is  we 
who  are  pygmies,  not  they  giants.  The  best 
condition  for  the  growth  of  these  powers  is 
seldom  obtained.  Poverty  or  contracted  no- 
tion? on  our  part  make  us  curb  the  aspirations 


158  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

and  compress  the  brain  in  the  iron  helmet  of 
our  ignorance  and  avarice. 

These  necessary  or  voluntary  restraints  the 
little  child  that  is  carried  to  heaven  never  suf- 
fers. No  poverty  crushes  out  the  life  of  its  in- 
tellect. No  lowness  of  parental  sentiment  nor 
wrongfulness  of  parental  judgment  debases  or 
distorts  it.  No  narrowness  of  scholarly  preju- 
dice nor  bewilderment  of  contending  factions 
on  these  fields  of  thought  contracts  or  mad- 
dens its  reason.  That  spirit  sees,  through 
glasses  adapted  to  its  vision,  truths  fitted  to 
its  wants.  It  settles  the  vexed  questions  of  the 
schools ;  it  stands  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  conflicts 
of  scholars  on  light,  on  life,  on  creation,  on  the 
essential  qualities  of  the  mind,  on  the  higher, 
and  hence  darker,  problems  of  theology.  It 
looks  out  on  nature  (for  nature  is  everywhere) 
with  an  eye  that  never  betrays  it  into  error. 
Its  teachers  and  guides  know  what  they  teach, 
know  in  what  measures  and  modes  to  impart 
their  truths,  how  to  feed  it  with  knowledge 
and  understanding.  What  a  glorious  school 
in  which  to  study,  with  holy  mothers  and  nurses 
to  lead  its  yet  immature  soul  to  the  reception  of 
childish  truth,  with  the  great  and  wise  of  all 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        159 

ages — Abraham  and  Moses  and  Solomon  and 
Paul,  Newton  and  Locke  and  Chalmers  and 
Foster,  mightiest  minds  in  the  human  annals 
— to  slake  its  thirst  at  streams  that  have  no 
taint  of  error,  with  angels  and  archangels 
weaving  their  little  less  than  infinite  thoughts 
into  its  mind,  with  Christ,  the  head  of  that 
school,  taking  the  little  ones  into  his  arms  and 
answering  the  questions  with  which  he  con- 
founded the  doctors !  What  is  your  knee,  sad 
mother,  what  your  school,  your  academy,  your 
university,  as  a  gymnasium  for  that  spirit's 
growth  beside  the  knee  of  that  angel,  that 
school,  that  university,  which  is,  indeed,  a  uni- 
verse of  which  great  spirits  once  in  the  flesh 
are  the  teachers  and  Christ  is  the  Principal  ? 

And  then  the  history  it  studies  ;  not  that 
of  earth  alone,  though  that  it  has  far  more 
perfectly  than  earthly  records  give  it  to  us,  for 
we  know  nothing  of  antediluvian  ages  and  but 
little  of  much  that  followed.  It  learns  all 
of  this  from  the  lips  of  that  grand  mother  of 
it  and  all,  or  from  other  equally  affectionate 
and  understanding  souls  ;  and  besides,  the  his- 
tory of  man  on  the  earth,  the  history  of  man 
in  the  heavens — the  history  of  the  whole  crea- 


160  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

tion  of  God.  So  walks  that  infant  mind 
through  infinite  wonders;  no  more  wonderful, 
probably,  than  those  cast  around  our  pathway, 
but  more  appreciated,  correctly  apprehended, 
resulting  in  much  more  rapid  and  glorious 
growth  of  these  powers.  If  occasional  phe- 
nomena are  witnessed  on  earth,  where  the  less 
gross  and  heavy  body  admits  of  early  and 
startling  developments  of  mind  ;  if  a  Pascal  or 
Macaulay  or  Euler  thus  flash  forth  in  child- 
hood a  brightness  which  but  few  ever  disclose 
at  the  summit  of  earthly  effort,  what  may  it 
not  be  where  no  such  entanglements  or  weights 
impede  the  spirit  ?  It  must  grow  if  it  is  con- 
scious, unless  God  has  determined  to  keep  it 
in  eternal  infancy.  We  have  no  belief  that  "  a 
babe  in  paradise  is  a  babe  forever."  That  sub- 
jects a  third  of  the  human  race  to  practical 
idiocy,  for  a  child  who  is  always  a  child  is  next 
door  to  a  fool.  It  must  grow  if  like  its  par- 
ents and  like  its  God.  If  proof  of  its  capacity 
were  demanded,  Christ  gives  it  when  he  says, 
"  Their  angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of 
my  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  If  the  angels 
of  the  little  ones  have  that  high  honor,  shall 
we  say  that  those  that  leave  the  earth  are  shut 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        161 

up  in  insensibility  ?  And  if  they  are  intelligent 
they  must  grow,  for  spirit,  unless  hindered 
from  without,  will  expand  ;  and  if  it  grows,  all 
these  favoring  circumstances  that  we  have 
dwelt  upon  attend  it  to  make  its  increase  one 
of  strength,  of  beauty,  and  of  glory  unspeakable. 
Its  heart,  too,  finds  there  a  far  more  happy 
field  for  its  unfolding  than  can  be  had  here. 
Affection  breeds  affection,  but  parental  love, 
however  powerful,  may  be  mixed  with  occa- 
sional petulance  and  anger  and  neglect,  now 
swelling  into  excess  and  sweeping  away  all 
proper  protections  for  the  safety  of  its  child 
in  its  deluge  of  passion.  It  must,  too,  be  min- 
gled with  error  in  judgment  as  to  the  best 
mode,  the  right  degree,  of  gratifying  the  de- 
sires of  the  child.  It  is  painfully  limited  in 
means  for  a  worthy  and  anxiously  desired  grat- 
ification ;  and  when  the  babe  looks  out  of  the 
inclosure  of  parental  arms  it  sees  a  cold  and 
selfish  world,  or  one,  at  the  most,  but  slightly, 
and  that  selfishly,  moved  with  love  toward 
it.  All  this  tends  to  breed  anger  and  suUen- 
ness,  prejudice  and  selfishness,  in  it,  and  it 
becomes  like  unto  us. 

But  around  it   in   heaven   how   diff'erent  a 
11 


■  162  CHRISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

society  !  Its  guardians  love  it  with  an  affec- 
tion, if  not  the  same  perhaps  as  strong  as  its 
parents',  and  wiser.  This  affection  never  relaxes 
its  hold  upon  its  heart,  never  falls  into  decay, 
never  swells  into  distorted  passion,  never  is 
mingled  with  fretfulness  or  anger,  never  is 
led  astray  in  judgment,  sees  what  the  child 
really  needs,  and  possesses  by  the  goodness  of 
God  abundant  means  for  its  supply.  While 
around  the  babe  and  its  nurse,  perhaps  its 
mother,  its  grandparents,  some  near  earthly 
relative,  and  its  angel  guardian,  moves  a  soci- 
ety, sensible  of  its  value,  tender  and  childlike 
in  all  their  feelings ;  that  loves  and  honors  and 
reveres  it  as  the  youngest  of  the  works  of 
God;  and  if  last,  why  not  best?  Thus  they 
cast  upon  it  influences  elevating  and  glad- 
dening, which  fill  its  soul  with  speechless 
love  and  joy.  That  heart,  that  very  heart 
that  you  felt  was  yours  and  that  you  believed 
no  other  could  .sympathize  with  nor  satisfy, 
finds  more  perfect  and  genial  sympathies  and 
more  complete  satisfaction  than  it  could  have 
found  pillowed  on  your  heart ;  and  in  the 
waves  of  full  and  glorious  feeling  it  bathes, 
with  an  energy  ever  growing  more  intense,  a 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        163 

sensibility  more  and  more  subtle  and  deep,  a 
passion  pure  and  perfect  and  divine. 

Finally,  it  is  well  with  the  child  religiously. 
This  needs  no  enlargement.  Freedom  from 
impulses  to  sin,  from  conscious  guilt, .  from 
the  sense  of  the  wrath  of  God,  from  the-  fear 
of  death,  the  judgment,  hell,  no  sight  of  wick- 
edness filling  its  young  eyes  with  amazement 
— soon,  alas!  filling  them  with  delight — no 
sound  of  sin  passing  through  and  through  its 
soul  as  if  shot  in  through  the  ear  by  him  who 
hurls  the  fiery  darts  of  death — would  not  this 
release  alone  be  proof  enough  of  its  superior 
condition  ?  But  to  this  added  the  surround- 
ings of  its  soul  there,  impulses  to  holiness,  in- 
centives to  holiness,  acts  of  holiness,  all  making 
sanctity  supremely  delightful;  spirits  of  the 
redeemed,  sights  suggestive  only  of  the  awful 
consequences,  not  the  false  delights,  of  sin  ;  ex- 
periences of  the  saved  ;  above  all,  the  presence 
of  the  Saviour,  the  seeing  of  his  pierced  hands 
and  brow,  the  smile  upon  his  face — these  fill 
the  soul  with  peace  and  purity.  No  serpent 
is  allowed  to  enter  that  paradise,  but  angels 
and  the  Lamb  are  the  inhabitants  thereof. 

It  remembers,  too,  its  brief  experience  of 


164  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

the  effect  of  sin.  The  two  or  three  moments 
it  spent  on  earth,  it  remembers,  had  much  of 
pain  in  them.  It  was  sometimes  dark  there ; 
fires  of  agony  ran  through  its  soul,  and  when 
it  left  it  it  knows  how  dreadful  were  its  suf- 
ferings. These,  it  learns,  are  the  consequences 
of  sin,  and  their  memory  grows  in  vividness  by 
the  very  brightness  of  surrounding  scenes  ;  it 
therefore,  in  view  of  this  momentary  history, 
chooses  freely  Christ  and  holiness.  Like  Christ 
it  has  never  known  sin,  but  it  has  known  its 
effects.  Like  him  it  suffered,  yet  without  sin. 
Like  him  it  knows  its  workings  in  the  body 
and  soul  as  a  source  of  pain,  but  not  of  re- 
morse, and  though  it  did  not  come  forth  from 
the  struggle  in  its  own  strength  triumphant  as 
did  Christ,  it  came  forth  victor  through  Christ, 
and  with  him  possesses  a  free  but  full  hatred 
of  that  whose  fruit  in  him  was  pain  and  death. 
Thus  the  child  infant,  as  if  on  probation,  can 
voluntarily  choose  holiness  and  abide  of  its 
own  choice  in  heaven. 

Are  not  these  sufificient  reasons  for  rejoicing 
at  the  early  introduction  of  human  souls  into 
the  beauties  and  joys  and  purities  and  safety 
of  heaven  ?     Should  you  mourn  their  depar- 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        163 

ture  when  you  know  they  are  adopted  in  the 
family  of  God,  the  royal  family  of  the  universe  ? 
There  they  play  in  the  paradise  of  God,  they 
run  before  the  Lamb  ;  while  he  leadeth  his 
children  to  the  living  fountains  of  waters,  they 
shout  and  sing  and  laugh  in  heavenly  inno- 
cence and  joy  around  his  sacred  steps.  How 
weak  is  our  faith  when  it  staggers  at  these 
truths,  perhaps  rejects  them  as  fables  not  even 
cunningly  devised  ! 

But  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  God  work 
in  us  as  well  as  in  them  in  such  events.  It  is 
designed  to  teach  us  the  vanity  of  earth,  and 
thus  wean  us  from  it.  An  adult  has  gleaned 
something  from  earth,  and  we  might  say, 
"  Let  me  live  his  life,  and  I  shall  feel  ready  to 
die."  But  an  infant  has  achieved  nothing.  If 
a  spirit,  a  human  spirit,  one  just  like  yours, 
can  give  up  earth  entirely,  cast  it  all  one  side 
and  yet  live  and  grow  in  every  faculty  of  its 
being,  what  folly  for  us  to  cling  to  it,  to  bury 
our  souls  in  it,  to  say  to  this  acre  or  two  of 
ground,  this  piece  of  merchandise,  this  hand- 
ful of  glittering  dirt,  this  fanciful  dress,  this 
giddy  pleasure,  this  paltry  hour,  "  Be  thou 
my  god,"  and  then  to  fall  before  it  and  satu- 


166  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

rate  every  fiber  of  our  spirits  with  its  vile  cor- 
ruption!    A  little  child  shall  lead  them. 

That  infant  who  leaves  your  acres  and 
goods  and  wardrobe  and  ornamented  rooms 
and  gewgaws  as  easily  and  as  gladly  as  it 
leaves  disease  and  death  behind  it,  let  it 
wean  you  from  the  earth.  Let  it  show  what 
it  must  have,  what  you  must  have,  for  real 
life,  real  happiness :  the  knowledge,  happiness, 
holiness  that  is  in  Christ,  all  attainable  feebly 
and  partially  on  earth,  all  enduring  in  death 
and  eternity. 

Let  it  show  you  the  elements  needful  for 
youi'  entrance  into,  your  enjoyment  of,  heav- 
en. Not  discontent  at  poverty,  nor  pride  of 
birth — both  are  sinful ;  the  beggar's  babe  plays 
with  the  queen's  there.  Not  greed  of  gold; 
gold  buys  no  passports  to  that  world  of 
light.  Not  love  of  this  world ;  that  passion 
breeds  no  love  for  the  world  to  come.  But 
humility,  godliness,  with  contentment;  love 
of  Christ,  glowing  and  growing,  working  in- 
wardly and  outwardly,  and  bringing  the  whole 
nature  into  sweet  and  perfect  subjection  and 
communion  with  him.  Thus,  thus  alone  can 
you  hope  to  meet  your  children.     Thus  may 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.       167 

God  ordain  through  that  babe  strength  to  your 
affections,  your  thoughts,  your  wills,  without 
your  reading  regretful  censure  in  their  eyes. 
Thus  may  you  dwell  with  them  all  your  earthly 
days  amid  the  peace  and  purity,  the  glofy  and 
love  of  heaven. 

One  or  two  reflections,  and  we  close. 

If  you  have  seen  the  face  of  your  babe 
frozen  in  death,  you  know  by  painful  memo- 
ries the  pangs  that  sight  creates.  Others  may 
talk  lightly  and  carelessly ;  may  say  a  child  so 
young  can  have  wrought  itself  but  slightly  into 
your  heart  and  can  be  taken  out  of  it  without 
disturbing  its  natural  and  pleasant  motions. 
All  this  is  seen  far  more  clearly  and  truly 
through  the  sad  eyes  of  experience.  "  They 
laugh  at  scars  who  never  felt  the  wound." 
If  but  the  smallest  segment  be  cutoff  from  the 
heart  we  shrink  and  wither,  and  cry  out  in  our 
agony  as  intensely  as  though  the  knife  clove  its 
center.  It  does  cleave  the  center.  The  ampu- 
tation of  a  finger  causes  as  much  pain  as  that 
of  an  arm  ;  the  removal  of  an  eye  more  than 
the  sundering  of  a  limb ;  and  you  know  yet  more 
that  these  distinctions  in  loss,  though  present- 
able to  the  reason,  are  not  present  to  the  soul 


168  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

in  its  hour  of  bereavement.  You  felt,  when 
that  eye  was  plucked,  a  darkness  gather  over 
the  face  of  nature.  That  star  gave  forth  its 
serene  and  blessed  light  amid  the  stars  of  elder 
birth  and  greater  magnitude  that  blended  dis- 
tinctly their  rays  with  the  central  sun  of  con- 
jugality, and  when  that  star  was  blotted  out 
a  dimness  came  over  the  heaven  of  home,  and 
all  things  shared  in  the  gloom  its  loss  created, 
and  you  say  from  the  heart : 

"  The  rainbow  comes  and  goes. 

And  lovely  is  the  rose  ; 

The  moon  doth  with  delight 

Look  round  her  when  the  heavens  are  bare. 

Waters  on  a  starry  night 

Are  beautiful  and  fair  ; 

The  sunshine  is  a  glorious  birth, 

But  yet  I  know,  where'er  I  go, 

That  there  haih  passed  away  a  glory  from  the  earth." 

This  memory  may  haVe  become  dusty  with 
years.  It  may  have  been  covered,  like  that  in- 
fant form,  with  the  dust  of  earth,  but  per- 
chance a  new  stroke  falling  on  a  neighboring 
head  may  have  awakened  the  soul  to  sensibil- 
ity, if  it  needed  any  awakening.  A  new-made 
grave  may  open  to  you  your  own  again.  You 
may  go  again   to  the  little  mound   to  weep 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        169 

there.  Preserve  the  memory  of  that  hour  of 
God's  visitation.  Preserve  it  as  an  incentive 
to  holiness,  as  a  preventive  to  worldHness.  If 
that  child  had  been  left  with  you  and  had  in 
its  growth  put  forth  only  the  traits  which  its 
heavenly  education  has  developed  ;  if  you  had 
seen  it  by  your  table  clothed  with  the  grace  of 
God,  full  of  meekness,  of  humility,  of  love, 
of  wise  suggestions  and  inquiries,  shuddering 
at  the  sight  of  the  least  sin,  infected  by  no 
craving  of  covetousness,  strivings  of  ambition, 
by  no  hungering  for  godless  pleasure,  yet  full 
of  activity,  of  sportfulness,  of  sensibility  to  the 
woes  and  sins  of  others,  seeing  its  duties,  and 
feeling  in  its  childish  spirit  an  energy  that 
made  it  calmly  and  joyously  discharge  those 
duties,  rebuking  your  indifference  with  a  "  Wist 
ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my  Father's 
business?" — if  as  Christ  grew  at  the  knees 
of  Mary  and  Joseph  that  child  had  grown  at 
yours — you  would  have  felt  the  divine  influ- 
ence. Its  purity,  innocence,  cheerfulness,  un- 
worldliness,  intelligence  of  heaven — all  these 
angelic  traits  would  have  kept  your  heart  green 
amid  the  deserts  of  life,  your  eye  unswerved, 
your  soul  heavenward.     That  babe  has  such  a 


170  CHRISrUS  CONSOLATOR. 

character.  Through  the  grace  of  Christ  its 
education  has  been  at  his  feet,  its  nature  has 
put  on  ills  beauties,  and  ere  long  you  will  meet 
that  form,  not  clad  in  infant  robes,  but  in  the 
garments  of  a  matured  spirit,  yet  bearing  in 
its  every  feature  the  impress  of  the  world  in 
which  it  has  been  trained.  Your  child  it  is, 
one  of  your  family,  feeling  the  filial  bond  more 
powerfully  than  any  yet  on  earth  can,  more 
than  you  do  the  parental  tie.  Take  that  child 
into  your  family.  Yet  it  will  sit  with  you,  walk 
with  you,  talk,  work,  mingle  perfectly  with 
you,  and  never  stain  its  garments.  Turn  it  not 
from  your  door;  shut  not  your  heart  in  intense 
worldliness  and  unbelief  against  its  entrance  ; 
call  it  yours,  and  let  it,  as  Christ  led  his  father 
and  mother,  lead  you  to  the  temple,  to  the 
cross,  to  heaven.  Keep  the  grave  green  ;  keep 
the  cemetery  in  the  soul  where  that  infant 
sleeps  ever  carefully  guarded  from  neglect. 
Let  not  the  weeds  of  worldly  desire,  the  thorns 
of  care,  the  rubbish  which  gathers  upon  neg- 
lected duty,  be  found  upon  that  sepulchral 
spot  in  your  heart.  Live  with  that  child,  asso- 
ciate with  it,  and  you  will  find  your  life  grow- 
ing in  purity  and  knowledge,  your  company 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.       HI 

angelic  and  divine ;  then  you  can  feel  the 
truth  of  the  poet's  declaration,  a  truth  written 
on  the  reason,  the  imagination,  the  heart ;  a 
truth  which  never  would  be. doubted  or  gain- 
sayable  were  we  not  so  gross,  sensual,  earthly, 
in  all  our  habits  and  feelings : 

"  Slie  is  not  dead — the  child  of  our  afifection — 

But  gone  unto  that  school 
Where  she  no  longer  needs  our  poor  protection, 

And  Christ  himself  doth  rule. 

"  In  that  great  cloister's  stillness  and  seclusion, 

By  guardian  angels  led, 
Safe  from  temptation,  safe  from  sin's  pollution. 

She  lives  whom  we  call  dead. 

"  Day  after  day  we  think  what  she  is  doing 

In  those  bright  realms  of  air  ; 
Year  after  year,  her  tender  steps  pursuing. 

Behold  her  grown  more  fair. 

"  Thus  do  we  walk  with  her,  and  keep  unbroken 

The  bond  which  nature  gives. 
Thinking  that  our  remembrance,  though  unspoken, 

May  reach  her  where  she  lives. 

"  Not  as  a  child  shall  we  again  behold  her ; 

For  when,  with  raptures  wild. 
In  our  embraces  we  again  enfold  her. 

She  will  not  be  a  child  ; 

"  But  a  fair  maiden,  in  her  Father's  mansion. 

Clothed  with  celestial  grace. 
And  beautiful  with  all  the  soul's  expansion. 

Shall  we  behold  her  face." 


172  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

By  thus  constantly  wiping  the  damps  of 
death  from  these  memories,  by  thus  keeping 
at  your  hearthstone  the  spirits  that  are  with 
Christ,  you  will  find — 

*'  That  when  the  stream 
That  overflowed  the  soul  has  passed  away, 
A  consciousness  remains  that  it  has  left 
Deposited  upon  the  silent  shore 
Of  memory  images  and  precious  thoughts 
That  shall  not  die  and  cannot  be  destroyed." 

And  you  whose  parental  arms  have  not  borne 
a  dead  child  to  its  coffin  and  its  grave,  have 
precious  lessons  of  love  and  wisdom  given  you 
by  your  Parent,  the  Father  of  all  the  living  on 
earth,  and  in  eternity.  That  son,  that  daughter, 
in  the  dawnings  of  their  immortality,  may  be 
taken  from  you.  God  has  left  them  with  you, 
but  he  has  left  with  them  fearful  responsibil- 
ities. If  he  takes  them  now  they  are  saved.  If 
left,  will  not  your  conduct  cause  their  everlast- 
ing destruction  ?  No  plate  of  the  artist  equals 
that  soul  in  its  sensitiveness  to  impressions.  It 
sees  your  anger,  your  covetousness,  your  neg- 
lect of  prayer,  your  abandonment  of  social 
Christian  duties,  your  coldness  and  formality 
in  religion,  your  warmth  and  zeal  in  business 
or  pleasure  ;  it  sees,  it  feels,  it  follows  them  all. 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        113 

Said  a  gentleman  to  me  once,  a  man  of 
wealth  and  the  world  :  "  I  never  felt  the  wick- 
edness of  swearing  very  forcibly  but  once.  I 
was  riding  over  my  grounds  with  my  little  boy, 
two  years  old,  just  opening  his  lips  in  broken 
language ;  and  stopping  among  some  of  my 
workmen  I  gave  vent  to  my  feelings  in  a 
profusion  of  oaths.  On  coming  to  another 
body  of  laborers  the  little  boy  burst  out  with 
all  of  the  oaths  he  had  just  heard  me  use.  I 
felt  an  awful  shudder  at  the  sound."  Perhaps 
you  swear  before  your  children.  What  a  mode 
to  teach  them  the  existence  of  God,  of  Jesus 
Christ,  of  damnation,  of  hell !  Perhaps  you  are 
free  from  this  sin  ;  but  is  not  your  example 
making  them  covetous,  forgetful  of  Christ,  full 
of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  ?  If  God 
should  take  them  away  now  and  they  were 
saved,  would  they  not  bear  forever  the  scars 
which  your  sins  had  inflicted,  scars  which,  but 
for  God's  mercy  in  removing  them,  would  have 
caused  mortal,  immortal  wounds,  and  death  ? 
Remember,  in  putting  you  in  that  relation  he 
has  made  your  first  duty  not  to  provide  for 
their  bodies,  but  for  their  souls ;  not  to  feed  them 
alone  with  earthly  knowledge,  but  heavenly; 


174  CHRJSTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

and  if  you  let  business,  or  household  duties,  or 
pleasures,  or  ambition,  or  any  other  public  or 
private  end,  distract  you  from  this,  the  curse  of 
Eli  will  be  upon  you,  the  agony  of  David  will 
rend  your  heart  asunder.  You  may  be  a  great 
minister  like  Eli ;  you  may  be  an  able  writer 
and  statesman  and  warrior  like  David ;  you 
may  be  a  keen  and  successful  business  man  or 
farmer  like  Jacob;  but  if  you  minister  not  at 
your  own  altar;  if  you  use  not  your  great  tal- 
ents  in  your  own  household ;  if  you  keep  clos- 
est watch  on  your  goods  and  customers  and  let 
your  family  run  wild,  then  shall  you  cry  out 
here  and  in  heaven,  "  My  gray  hairs  are 
brought  down  with  sorrow  to  the  grave !  " 
"  O  my  son  Absalom !  my  son,  my  son  Absalom ! 
would  God  I  had  died  for  thee,  O  Absalom,  my 
son,  my  son!  "  God  in  his  mercy  keep  you  from 
such  cries !  God  give  you  grace  to  so  live  be- 
fore your  family,  to  so  guide  and  nurture  them, 
not  by  words  stiff  and  formal  and  rare  alone, 
but  by  frequent  and  loving  talks  on  Christ  and 
holiness  and  heaven,  by  self-denial,  freedom 
from  passion,  invective,  and  slander,  by  benev- 
olence, by  zeal  for  Christ,  by  faithfulness  at  the 
altar  of  home,  in  the  class,  the  prayer  room, 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.       175 

the  church,  at  the  sacramental  table,  that  you 
may  say  when  brought  to  the  bar  of  God,  in 
humility  and  gladness,  "  Here  am  I  and  the 
children  which  thou  hast  given  me." 

Finally,  that  infant's  grave  addresses  the 
young.  From  its  tiny  mound,  its  pulpit,  that 
late  translated  spirit  speaks  to  your  heart  in 
most  audible  language  :  "  He  that  hath  ears  to 
hear,  let  him  hear."  "  Take  heed  that  ye  de- 
spise not  one  of  these  little  ones;  for  I  say  unto 
you.  That  in  heaven  their  angels  do  always  be- 
hold the  face  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 
The  infant  comes  from  God.  He  is  your 
youngest  brother ;  he  is  the  last  messenger 
you  have  had  from  heaven.  Let  him  keep 
your  childhood  holy,  fill  your  youthful  hours 
with  infant  innocence  ;  and  as  then  Christ  was 
with  you  without  your  knowledge,  now  let 
him  be  received  in  your  heart  and  mind, 
giving  you  the  love  and  wisdom  of  heaven. 
Submit  to  the  guidance  of  that  tiny  hand. 
Said  we  not,  to  be  men  of  science  we  must 
study  nature  in  her  infant  form?  To  know 
humanity  every  great  philosopher  goes  to  in- 
fanthood ;  and  going  thither  you  will  find  man 
in  his  truest  as  well  as  loveliest  earthly  expres- 


176  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

sion.  You  will  find  a  glad  and  gay  instructor, 
one  who  will  lead  you  to  solemn  mysteries  and 
holiest  duties  with  a  heart  full  of  love,  of  joy, 
of  religion. 

"  Dearest,  to  thee  I  did  not  send 
Tutors,  but  a  joyful  eye, 
Innocence  that  matched  the  sky, 
I,ovely  locks,  a  form  of  wonder. 
Laughter  rich  as  woodland  thunder, 
That  thou  might'st  entertain  apart 
The  richest  flowering  of  all  art  ; 
And  as  the  great  all-loving  day 
Through  smallest  chambers  takes  its  way, 
That  thou  might'st  break  thy  daily  bread 
With  Prophet,  Saviour,  and  Head  ; 
That  thou  might'st  cherish  for  thine  own 
The  riches  of  sweet  Mary's  Son. 
Boy,  rabbi !  heaven's  paragon, 
Revere  thy  Maker,  fetch  thine  eye 
Up  to  his  style  and  manners  of  the  sky." 

Let  the  least  of  the  children  of  God  be  your 
teacher,  your  exemplar.  If  not  from  his  liv- 
ing, from  his  dead  lips  God  has  ordained 
strength  to  your  soul.  He  hath  suffered  in  the 
flesh  and  without  sin.  You  are  yet  in  the 
flesh,  perhaps  deep  in  sin.  Ere  many  days, 
and  the  feet  that  carried  him  out  shall  be  at 
your  door  ;  a  heavier  burden  of  flesh  it  will  be. 
May  the  angels  that  carry  your  spirit  to  the 
judgment  find   no  heavier  burden  than  they 


TAKING  CHILDREN  IN  HIS  ARMS.        177 

did  when  but  yesterday  they  bore  from  your 

midst  an  infant   soul  to  Christ !     Live  the  life 

you  now  live  by  faith  in  the  Son  of  God.     His 

grace  will  enable  you  to  keep  as  pure  here  as 

if  you. had  gone  up  to  him  in  your  infancy.    In 

these  lower  regions,  like  those  working  beneath 

the  surface  of  the  sea,  we  may  breathe  only 

the  air  that  is  above  us,  that  is  fitted  for  us, 

and  drink  none  of  the  waters  of  death  around. 

We   may   thus  gather  treasures   here  for   life 

eternal,  and  when  called  up  from  the  darkness 

and  sin  of  this  world  may  have  an  abundant 

entrance  ministered  unto  us  in  the  home  of 

the  holy. 
12 


"  Behold,   we  count  them  happy  which  endure." — James 
V,  II. 

"One  indeed  I  knew 
In  many  a  subtle  question  versed, 
Who  touched  a  jarring  lyre  at  first 
But  ever  strove  to  make  it  true: 

"  Perplexed  in  faith,  but  pure  in  deeds, 

At  last  he  beat  his  music  out. 

There  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds. 

"  He  fought  his  doubts  and  gathered  strength. 
He  would  not  make  his  judgment  blind  ; 
He  faced  the  specters  of  the  mind 

And  laid  them  ;  thus  he  came  at  length 

*'  To  find  a  stronger  faith  his  own  ; 
And  Power  was  with  him  in  the  night. 
Which  makes  the  darkness  and  the  light. 

And  dwells  not  in  the  light  alone." 


VI. 
ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS. 

HOW  manifold  is  the  idea  of  happiness  I 
One  locates  it  in  repose,  another  in 
action;  one  in  peace,  another  in  war;  one 
in  the  indulgence  of  appetite,  another  in 
the  gratification  of  the  higher  senses,  another 
in  the  satisfaction  of  the  affections,  another  in 
the  exercise  of  the  mind  upon  its  appropriate 
objects,  and  yet  another  in  the  worship  of  God. 
Among  them  all  the  characteristic  of  hap- 
piness that  James  here  speaks  of  would  not 
find  place.  Endurance  happiness?  Impos- 
sible! The  end  may  be  happy,  but  not  the 
act.  Yet  both  are  true.  They  are  happy 
while  they  endure  as  well  as  because  they  en- 
dure ;  happy  in  the  act  as  well  as  in  the  re- 
sult of  enduring ;  and  this  because  endurance 
itself  is  happiness.  For  all  the  idea  of  hap- 
piness is  one  and  the  same.  From  the  child  to 
the  Solomon,  from  the  debauchee  to  the  saint, 
there  is  one  common  ground  of  agreement  as 
to  what  they  seek.     Diverse  and  contrary  as 


180  CHRI  STL'S  COX  SOLA  TO  A\ 

are  the  ways  they  pursue,  false  and  fatal  as 
many  of  them  are,  the  thing  they  wish  is  one 
and  the  same.  It  is  the  sense  of  pleasure,  the 
feeling  of  satisfaction,  the  subtle  something 
which  makes  its  possessor  cry  out,  "  If  there 
be  an  elysium  on  earth  it  is  this,  it  is  this." 

Now  this  joyful  consciousness  the  child  seeks 
and  finds  in  his  sports,  the  scholar  in  his  studies, 
the  soldier  in  the  terrific  excitements  of  battle, 
the  saint  in  his  prayers.  Yea,  more,  the  mar- 
tyr finds  it  in  the  stake  and  gallows.  Not  that 
they  themselves  are  pleasurable,  but  duty  is, 
which  duty  they  develop  by  compelling  the 
soul  to  meet  them  in  its  steadfast  march. 

On  the  other  hand,  even  false  pleasures  have 
in  them  a  certain  portion  of  happiness.  No 
man  would  drink  fashionable  and  fatal  bever- 
ages did  they  not  ravish  the  taste  and  exhila- 
rate the  feelings.  No  man  would  be  a  de- 
bauchee, a  theater-goer,  a  dancer,  a  gambler, 
a  thief,  or  even  a  murderer,  were  there  not  a 
certain  amount  of  pleasure  in  these  forbidden 
things  ;  in  fact,  that  is  the  name  they  go  by. 
Says  Byron : 

"  O  pleasure,  you  are  indeed  a  pleasant  thing. 
Although  one  must  be  damned  for  you,  no  doubt." 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  IS  I 

"Not  only  pleasure's  sin,  but  sin's  a  pleasure." 
They  are  sinful  pleasures;  that  is,  delights  that 
have  a  momentary  existence  contrary  to  their 
true  nature  and  relations  ;  that  are  enjoyed  in 
spite  of  the  will  of  their  Creator  and  contrary  to 
that  will ;  that  are  unnatural  expressions  of  na- 
ture, and  certain,  if  indulged,  to  lead  the  soul  to 
ruin.  Yet  they  have  one  of  the  essential  quali- 
ties of  happiness — delight.  The  murderer  who 
stealthily  approaches  his  victim,  who  plants 
his  revolver  at  his  unsuspecting  head,  who 
sends  the  deadly  missile  through  that  seat 
of  life,  has  a  certain  hellish  delight  in  this 
moment  of  hellish  crime ;  he  thinks  he  is 
happy.  But  these  false  and  wicked  counter- 
feits of  happiness  employ  not  our  thoughts 
this  hour.  Let  them  howl  in  their  outer  abyss- 
es like  beasts  of  prey  in  savage  glee  over  their 
bleeding  victims.  We  shall  not  admit  them  to 
the  glorious  company  of  divine  delights  where- 
on the  apostle  dwells.  Nor  shall  the  innocent 
happiness  of  the  child,  the  noble  happiness  of 
the  philanthropist,  the'  lofty  ecstasy  of  the 
scholar,  the  unspeakable  bliss  of  home  de- 
lights, absorb  our  thoughts ;  but  that  happi- 
ness  only  which  is  found    in   believing,    and 


182  CHRISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

that  joy  which  is  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  It 
is  those  thus  happy  in  the  beginning  who 
are  permanently  happy  solely  through  en- 
durance. 

This  is  so  for  two  reasons : 

First,  endurance  itself  confers  happiness.  It 
is  something  for  a  soul  to  be  sure  that  it  can 
face  a  frowning  world. 

The  winter  before  our  war  broke  out  was  a 
time  of  great  cowardice.  Never  was  the  heart 
of  the  people  so  like  water;  never  did  our 
knees  so  smite  together.  We  were  dissolved, 
destroyed,  annihilated.  What  has  wrought 
the  change  ?  Endurance.  Smitten  to  the  dust 
by  more  than  one  terrible  blow,  we  were  com- 
pacted, hardened,  by  the  act.  We  went  forth 
to  our  work  with  a  more  resolute  soul  and 
with  a  steadier  endeavor  to  never  give  up  the 
struggle  till  the  last  armed  foe  expired,  until 
our  endurance  was  rewarded  with  success. 

Yet  those  blessings  are  not  our  sole  rewards. 
The  feeling  that  we  have  experienced  through 
this  process  of  pain  has  been  one  of  growth 
and  strength.  In  our  weakest  moments  the 
resolution  never  to  yield  to  the  power  of  our 
enemies  went  through  our  sinking  hearts  like 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS,  1S3 

a  charge  of  electricity.  It  put  iron  into  our 
blood  and  steel  into  our  souls.  It  made  our 
natures  granitic.  The  loose  sand  of  a  wild  and 
whirling  will  became  indurated  in  the  vehe- 
ment heat.  In  this  putting  forth  of  strength, 
what  delight,  solid,  deep,  substantial,  has  been 
wrought  within  us !  We  have  felt  that  we 
were  changing  from  youth  to  manhood,  from 
unconscious  to  conscious  life ;  and  in  that  feel- 
ing has  been  our  reward  for  our  pain  and  suffer- 
ing, our  weakness  and  anguish.  Out  of  weak- 
ness we  were  made  strong. 

The  same  law  holds  in  human  experience 
generally  other  than  religious.  The  supe- 
riority of  the  man  over  the  youth  is  not  in  his 
range  of  superficial  observation  or  of  resources 
of  pleasure,  but  in  the  solidity  of  his  experience. 
Endurance  of  sorrow  has  hardened  the  mar- 
row of  his  soul.  Endurance  changes  the  weak, 
flabby  youngling  into  the  self-poised,  solid 
man.  It  takes  the  volatile  girl,  tickled  with 
the  latest  fashion,  smile,  or  novel,  and  trans- 
forms her  into  the  quiet,  calm,  resolute  woman, 
faithfully  pursuing  her  appointed  way,  what- 
ever of  storm  or  darkness  cover  it.  Without 
such    experience    true    growth    is  impossible. 


184  CUR  I  ST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

Marble  is  mere  limestone  until  crystallized  by 
fire  ;  diamonds  charcoal  till  subjected  to  heat. 
So  the  grand,  crystallized,  luminous  soul  is  he 
that  has  walked  in  the  fiery  furnace,  joyful 
amid  the  flames. 

This  is  preeminently  true  in  religion.  A 
Christian  who  merely  takes  the  grace  of  sal- 
vation as  a  gift  from  God,  and  never  has  it 
wrought  into  his  soul  by  his  conscious  use  of  it 
in  the  tests  of  trial,  is  only  a  babe  in  Christ. 
Thus  the  apostle  treats  him.  Not  a  child  in 
years,  but  experience.  However  aged,  however 
wise,  however  versed  in  worldly  affairs,  he  is 
yet  a  babe  in  Christ  unless  he  has  carried  his 
faith  through  the  heights  and  depths  of  con- 
scious being,  through  temptation,  affliction, 
anguish,  disease,  and  death.  In  this  endurance 
he  finds  a  divine  delight.  "  Is  it  possible," 
exclaims  that  once  besotted  inebriate,  the  very 
sight  of  a  glass  setting  him  on  fire,  "  is  it  pos- 
sible that  I  can  look  upon  the  wine  when  it  is 
red,  when  it  moveth  itself  aright  in  the  cup, 
and  be  its  victor  ?  "  The  very  thought  is  full 
of  happiness.  "  Is  it  possible,"  says  that  once 
wretched  blasphemer,  "  that  I,  who  could  not 
utter  the  simplest  sentence  without  covering  it 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  185 

with  profanity  as  with  a  garment,  whose  mildest 
passion  was  vented  in  oaths,  is  it  possible  that 
I  can  speak  with  pureness  of  language  and  be 
angry  even  without  sin  ?  "  And  thus  thinking 
he  rejoices  in  God  with  exceeding  great  joy. 
"Is  it  possible,"  says  a  third,  "that  I,  who 
once  hated  the  ordinances  of  the  Church,  to 
whom  the  thought  of  prayer  was  intolerable, 
the  class  and  social  worship  disgusting,  who 
longed  nightly  for  the  theater,  the  ballroom, 
the  gaming  table — is  it  possible  that  I  can  leap 
to  meet  the  sacred  embraces  of  my  God  in 
secret  and  social  worship,  that  I  can  stead- 
fastly reject  the  baits  of  pleasing  ill  ?  "  How 
does  his  soul  crystallize  into  solidity  and  beauty 
and  delight  as  he  counts  these  victories  o'er! 

But  yet  more  does  endurance  confer  delight. 
When  sorrow  bows  the  spirit  down,  when  dis- 
tress and  anguish  get  fast  hold  of  him,  when 
lover  and  friend  are  put  far  from  him,  and  his 
acquaintance  into  darkness ;  when  riches  take 
to  themselves  wings  and  flee  away;  when 
parent,  companion,  or  child  is  snatched  from 
his  tenacious  grasp  ;  when  the  earth  again  be- 
comes without  form  and  void,  and  darkness 
and  chaos  are  on  the  abyss  of  the  soul,  then, 


186  ClIKJSTUS  CONSOLA  TOR. 

if  the  soul  can  wait  patiently  on  its  God,  if  it 
exults  in  the  God  of  its  salvation,  if  it  says, 
"Not  my  will  but  thine  be  done,"  how  wonder- 
fully do  the  blessed  ecstasies  of  ineffable  peace 
possess  it  wholly  !  How  one  feels  then  that  en- 
durance is  itself  happiness  !  How  the  knitting 
of  feeling  to  feeling,  of  thought  to  thought, 
according  to  the  divine  intent,  and  through  the 
instinctive  law  of  the  divine  working,  makes 
him  feel  that  his  nature,  which  was  before 
amorphic,  a  conglomerate  mass  of  something, 
nothing,  now  vile,  now  penitent,  now  sinking, 
now  soaring,  now  earthly,  sensual,  and  devilish 
— that  this  misshapen,  unshapen  soul  is  be- 
coming symmetrical !  You  hold  it  fast  to  the 
anvil,  and  God  is  heating  and  smiting  it  into 
forms  of  beauty.  The  low  is  upraised,  the 
earthly  is  sublimated,  the  sensual  is  spiritual- 
ized, and  the  whole  nature  begins  to  rearrange 
itself  around  the  divine  center,  and  its  every 
face  to  reflect  his  likeness  and  image,  as  every 
face  of  a  gem  does  the  sun  that  shines  upon 
it,  and  out  of  whose  light  and  heat  it  became 
a  gem.  The  thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  re- 
solves, the  whole  being,  thrill  with  the  life, 
express  the  likeness,  of  the  Redeemer. 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  187 

Thus  the  act  of  endurance  breeds  instant 
blessedness.  This  sense  of  standing  up  for 
Jesus  against  a  flattering  and  a  furious  world, 
against  bereavement  and  desolation — the  ex- 
treme experience  which  culminates  in  that 
boldest  word  of  Job,  "  Though  he  slay  me,  yet 
will  I  trust  in  him" — itself  involves  the  highest 
strain  of  happiness.  It  is  the  joy  of  duty  do- 
ing, the  joy  of  courage  contending,  the  joy  of 
Christ,  that  made  him  move  calmly  and  confi- 
dently through  the  awful  trials  of  his  faith. 
This  joy  endurance  gives. 

Think  you  that  our  heroic  brothers  who 
stood  in  the  forefront  of  battle,  quietly  facing 
the  fierce  assaults  of  their  foes,  were  without 
a  sublime  joy  in  that  awful  hour?  Do  you 
believe  they  ever  felt  a  kindred  happiness 
in  the  hour  of  dissipation,  of  mere  pleasure, 
however  pleasurable,  of  common  thought  and 
feeling — nay,  of  the  rarest  moment  of  ecstatic 
emotion  that  other  earthly  experience  can  im- 
part ?  So  the  soul  that  fronts  a  legion  of 
devils,  that  assails  them  in  the  name  of  his 
God,  enduring  their  fiery  darts,  their  ferocious 
bowlings,  their  wily  flatteries,  their  malignant 
assaults,  walking  like  the  pilgrim  through  the 


188  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOK. 

awful  valley  of  death  with  its  legion  of  devils 
leaping  upon  him,  fearing  no  evil,  wrestling 
bravely  with  the  hideous  Apollyon,  unsubdued 
and  unterrified,  even  when  for  a  moment  he  is 
under  his  feet — such  a  soul  in  that  same  hour 
experiences  the  richest  ecstasy  of  bliss.  Then 
we  feel  the  truthfulness  of  the  poet's  profound 
conception : 

"  Poor  vaunt  of  life,  indeed, 

Were  man  but  formed  to  feed 
On  joy,  to  solely  seek  and  find  and  feast. 

Such  feasting  ended,  then 

As  sure  an  end  of  men. 
Irks  care  the  crop-full  bird?     Frets  doubt  the  maw-crammed 
beast  ? ' 

"  Then  welcome  each  rebuff 

That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough ; 
Each  sting  that  bids,  nor  sit,  nor  stand,  but  go  ! 

Be  our  joys  three  parts  pain  ! 

Strive  and  hold  cheap  the  strain  ! 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang  ;  dare,  never  grudge  the  throe  ! " 

Second,  we  count  them  happy  that  endure, 
because  thus  alone  they  win,  and  what  they 
win  repays  the  endurance.  No  affliction  for 
the  present  seemeth  to  be  joyous,  but  grievous. 
The  fight,  though  indurating,  is  not  the  end 
sought ;  that  is  the  peace  beyond.  Our  great 
generals  do  not  believe  their  highest  bliss  is 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  189 

the  rapture  of  the  strife,  but  the  calm  of  vic- 
tory. So  the  apostle  was  not  looking  at  Job 
in  his  patience  as  the  emblem  of  happiness, 
but  in  the  rewards  of  that  patience.  The 
end  of  the  Lord  was  set  before  them  as  a  stim- 
ulant to  their  persistence ;  but  the  glory  of 
the  Lord  was  the  object  that  end  had  in  view. 
Thither,  then,  turn  your  eyes.  We  count 
them  happy  that  endure,  because  thus  they 
reach  the  goal ;  they  win  the  prize,  they  enter 
into  that  for  which  they  contended  manfully. 
They  are  partakers  of  the  rewards  of  heaven. 

What  that  reward  is,  who  can  tell?  Here 
we  pause.  That  book  of  vision  is  sealed. 
None  can  open  the  book  or  unloose  the  seals 
thereof.  No  man,  however  clear  his  spiritual 
vision,  however  strong  his  faith,  can  rend  this 
veil  asunder.  And  yet  we  are  told  to  count 
those  happy  that  endure,  for  great  is  their  re- 
ward in  heaven.  That  is  all ;  but  that  is 
enough.  It  includes  all.  It  includes  rest  for 
the  weary  body,  rest  for  the  wearier  soul,  eter- 
nal love,  ineffable  peace,  all  outer,  all  inner  de- 
lights, all  lowly,  all  exalted  pleasures ;  rap- 
tures of  the  mind  studiously  penetrating  the 
highest  heavens  of  thought ;  raptures  of  the 


190  CHRIST  US  CO  K  SO  LA  TOR. 

heart  flowing  in  ceaseless  streams  of  inexpress- 
ible love  ;  raptures  for  the  senses  in  the  beauty 
of  scenery  in  country  and  city,  in  the  melo- 
dies of  praise  and  peace,  the  heavenly  harmo- 
nies that  would  create  a  soul  under  the  ribs  of 
death,  of  odors  that  intoxicate  with  their 
dainty  perfection' of  perfume,  golden  vials  full 
of  holy  odors — of  all  that  can  ravish  the  right 
though  lower  movements  of  our  being.  And 
then,  far  above  the  objects  of  sense,  of  mind, 
of  heart,  are  those  in  which  they  all  center 
— the  sight,  the  knowledge,  the  love  of  the 
Lamb  of  God.  They  shall  see  his  face;  they 
shall  follow  the  Lamb  whithersoever  he  goeth  ; 
they  shall  praise  him  day  and  night ;  they  shall 
behold  his  glory ;  they  shall  partake  of  that 
glory. 

Well  might  the  apostle  count  those  happy 
that  endure  ! 

If  our  brothers  on  the  perilous  ridge  of  bat- 
tle could  but  have  looked  forward  a  few  years, 
or  even,  it  may  be,  a  few  generations,  and  seen 
the  peace,  the  prosperity,  the  blessedness  of 
this  land,  washed  of  its  awful  sins,  every  soul 
in  freedom  and  brotherhood,  in  love  and  unity, 
we  might  well  count  them  happy  in  their  endur- 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  191 

ance  then.  So  if  the  fainting,  trembling,  almost 
wavering  Christian  can  only  look  forward  to  that 
grand  future  when  he  shall  lay  his  armor  by, 
when  the  fierce  enemy  can  assail  him  no  more, 
when  the  sinful,  carnal  nature  is  laid  forever 
asleep,  when  life  in  its  fullness,  calm,  and  glory 
shall  flood  his  toilworn  soul  —  if  he  can  but 
once  get  a  glimpse  of  the  joy  of  his  Lord,  he 
may  well  count  himself  happy  if  he  endure. 

Many  applications  of  this  doctrine  and  duty 
press  upon  our  attention.     Consider  a  few  : 

First :  They  only  are  happy  that  endure. 
"Ye  did  run  well  for  a  season,  "  will  be  said  of 
many  a  faint-hearted  disciple.  Yet  what  avails 
it  if  they  do  not  reach  the  goal  ?  Only  that 
side  will  be  happy  that  endures  to  the  end. 
How  oft  we  have  seen  one  enter  this  battle  for 
eternity!  He  girds  oahis  armor  with  buoyant 
hope.  He  moves  out  to  meet  the  adversary 
with  assurance  and  zeal ;  songs  and  smiles 
around  the  revival  altar  escort  him  to  the 
field  ;  but  when  the  battle  begins,  when  Satan 
presses  sore,  when  it  is  not  hymns  of  exulta- 
tion and  warm  welcomes  of  Christian  friends 
that  are  to  sustain  him,  but  a  hard,  heroic, 
steady  will,  a  strong,  quick,  resolute  soul,  an 


132  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

eye  of  faith,  an  arm  of  God,  then  will  it  be 
seen  whether  he  will  win  or  not.  Not  in  the 
prayer  meeting,  but  in  the  street,  is  this  battle 
waged  ;  not  over  your  Bible,  but  with  wicked 
books  enticing  you  to  their  awful  pages ;  not 
among  your  Christian  friends,  but  in  the  soli- 
tude and  secrecy  of  your  chamber ;  not  in  your 
hour  of  prayer,  but  the  hour  of  business:  then 
Satan  masses  his  legions  and  hurls  them  upon 
you  ;  then  you  may  secretly  kiss  His  hand,  then 
you  may  fall  before  him,  then  you  must  endure. 
Only  thus  and  then  can  you  win  eternal  life. 
Not  he  who  pushed  his  bark  half  across  the 
unknown  waters  discovered  America,  but  he 
who  endured  unto  the  end  won  the  real,  im- 
mortal laurel. 

Second  :  You  can  endure  if  you  will.  It  is 
not  possible  for  both  sides  to  win  in  most  strug- 
gles ;  one  or  the  other  must  go  down.  It  is 
not  certain  whether  you,  my  Christian  brother, 
will  win.  Failure  arises  from  treason,  and 
treason  only.  God  is  on  our  side  ;  he  orders 
the  battle  ;  he  marshals  his  forces  and  sum- 
mons us  to  the  front.  He  cannot  be  defeated  ; 
we  cannot  be  if  we  adhere  to  him.  He  is  more 
than  all  that  can  be  against  us.      He  will  give 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  193 

you  strength  to  endure  to  the  end.  You  shall 
be  victorious  if  you  trust  in  him.  No  storm 
shall  be  great  enough  to  wreck  your  vessel,  no 
foe  powerful  enough  to  compel  you  to  flee. 
Be  of  good  courage,  and  he  will  strengthen 
your  heart.  You  shall  overcome  and  sit  down 
on  his  throne  even  as  he  has  overcome  and  is 
set  down  on  his  Father's  throne. 

Third :  Thus  shall  we  resemble  our  Lord  and 
Master.  "  Consider  the  end  of  the  Lord." 
What  a  sight  does  that  spectacle  afford — the 
Son  of  God  condescending  to  enter  the  arena 
and  contend  with  the  enemy  of  man ;  com- 
pelled to  listen  to  his  subtle  flatteries,  to  face 
his  intensest  fury,  to  bow  his  back  to  the 
scourgers,  to  walk  amid  the  fires  of  hell!  But 
he  endures,  even  to  the  end,  with  all  its  mys- 
terious conflicts  unmeasurable  by  any  crea- 
tural  instruments.  He  endures.  He  wades 
the  ocean,  infinite  in  depth,  infinite  in  storms, 
an  ocean  of  blood — his  own  blood.  Thus  only 
he  mounts  the  other  shores,  the  green  banks 
of  divine  deliverance.  Shall  we  fail  where  he 
triumphed?  He  triumphed  that  we  might 
never  fail.      Not  for  himself  did  he  fight  and 

win.    "  Not  for  myself,"  he  says,  "  did  I  subdue 
13 


194  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

my  enemies  under  my  feet,  but  for  your  sake, 
that  you  might  follow  me,  fill  up  that  which 
remaineth  behind  of  my  afflictions,  and  share 
with  me  the  glory  of  eternal  life." 

Be  ye  followers  of  God  as  dear  children  ;  be 
soldiers  like  your  Captain ;  be  faithful  unto 
death,  that  he  may  see  in  you  the  proofs  of 
his  own  courage  and  success,  may  honor  you 
with  his  eternal  companionship  and  glory. 

Fourth:  If  you  are  not  of  the  class  that  en- 
dure, beware  !  Say  not,  "  I  am  excluded  from 
this  appeal.  I  have  never  enlisted,  never  served, 
never  fought.  No  charge  of  effeminacy  or  trea- 
son can  lie  at  my  door.  No  ruin  threatens 
me."  Is  it  so?  Is  he  who  tarries  at  home  ex- 
cused from  service  ?  Is  he  the  more  excused 
if  he  maligns  the  cause  for  which  he  should 
contend  and  scorns  its  patriotic  appeals? 
How  do  you  treat  the  skulking  coward  in  the 
time  of  war?  And  shall  you  escape  because 
you  reject  Christ  and  his  cause  ?  Nay  !  nay  ! 
They  that  know  their  Lord's  will  and  do  it 
not  shall  be  beaten  with  many  stripes.  They 
that  mock  at  God's  claims,  refuse  to  obey 
his  summons,  busy  themselves  with  their 
pleasures,    employments,    and     sins,    cannot 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  195 

escape  his  final  examination  of  their  conduct. 
You,  too,  shall  stand  before  him.  To  you 
shall  he  say,  "  I  was  a  hungered,  and  ye  gave 
me  no  meat.  I  was  sick  and  in  prison,  and  ye 
visited  me  not."  "  Cast  ye  the  unprofitable 
servant  into  outer  darkness.  There  shall  be 
weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth."  Ah,  my  friend, 
do  you  wish  to  hear  that  word  ?  You  will  hear 
it  so  surely  as  you  neglect  so  great  salvation. 
Let  God  be  true  and  every  man  a  liar.  God 
has  said,  has  sworn  it.  Believe  it,  believe  it ! 
Hasten,  hasten  to  enter  his  service  !  Endure 
hardness  as  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Persevere  unto  the  end.  Face  a  seducing,  a 
persecuting,  world.  Be  God's  now ;  be  his 
while  life  shall  last,  and  you  shall  be  his 
forever. 

Finally,  count  it  all  joy  when  ye  fall  into 
divers  temptations.  Ye  are  thus  to  prove 
your  allegiance.  Repine  not  if  the  waters  go 
over  your  head,  if  the  sword  pierce  your  own 
soul  also,  if  you  are  permitted  to  fill  up  that 
which  remaineth  behind  of  the  sufferings  of 
Christ.  Rejoice  and  be  exceeding  glad.  Thus 
shall  you  prove  your  allegiance,  your  fidelity, 
your  courage. 


196  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

The  soldiers  who  stayed  with  Washington 
the  dreadful  winter  of  Valley  Forge — who 
doubted  their  loyalty?  Who  will  yours  if  you 
say  and  show  your  word  true  :  "  Though  all 
others  forsake  thee,  yet  will  not  I?"  Thus 
serving,  the  earthly  becomes  refined  ;  the  agony 
which  may  rend  your  soul  brings  celestial 
strength.  Under  the  anvil  you  rejoice  that 
God  is  molding  you  to  a  vessel  unto  honor. 
Between  the  fuller's  beating  flails  you  feel 
your  vile  robes  are  beginning  to  glow  with  a 
lustrous  purity.  Tied  to  the  potter's  wheel, 
whirling,  and  feeling  as  you  whirl  the  sharp 
knife  of  God  cutting  out  the  gross  earth, 
wince  not.  Shapes  of  beauty  shall  come 
from  that  biting  steel.  You  shall  be  carved 
into  divine  symmetry ;  you  shall  be  orna- 
mented with  the  exquisite  figures  which  his 
supreme  art  brings  out  of  the  rough  clay  ;  and, 
more  than  all,  shall  you  be  set  apart  for  the 
Master's  use — the  cup  of  his  blessings,  praise, 
and  joy. 

So  sings  the  poet.     Hear  his  strain  : 

"  Ay,  iioie  that  potter's  wheel, 
That  metaphor  !  and  feel 
Why  time  spins  fast,  why  passive  lies  our  clay. 


ENDURANCE,  HAPPINESS.  197 

What  though  the  earlier  grooves, 

Which  ran  the  laughing  loves 
Around  thy  base,  no  longer  pause  and  press? 

What  though  about  thy  rim 

Skulls,  things  in  order  grim, 
Grow  out  in  graver  mood,  obey  the  sterner  stress  ? 

Look  not  thou  down  but  up 

To  uses  of  a  cup  : 
The  festal  board,  lamp's  flash  and  trumpet's  peal, 

The  new  wine's  foaming  flow. 

The  Master's  lips  aglow. 
Thou,    heaven's  consummated    cup,  what   need'st    thou 
with  earth's  wheel  ?  " 


"  I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto  me,  Write, 
Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord  from  henceforth : 
Yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that  they  may  rest  from  their  labors  ; 
and  their  works  do  follow  them." — Rev.  xiv,  13. 

"Her  sun  is  gone  down  while  it  was  yet  day." — Jer.  xv,  9. 

"  O  mother  dear,  Jerusalem, 

When  shall  I  come  to  thee  ? 
When  shall  my  sorrows  have  an  end  ? 

Thy  joys  when  shall  I  see  ? 

•  "  O  happy  harbor  of  God's  saints  ! 
O  sweet  and  pleasant  soil ! 
In  thee  no  sorrow  may  be  found. 
No  grief,  no  care,  no  toil !  " 


VII. 

THE  BLESSEDNESS  OF  THE  BLESSED 
DEAD. 

\T  7"ITH  these  remains  before  us,  once 
^  ^  buried,  unburied,  and  to  be  reburied,  of 
one  whom  so  many  here  admired  and  loved, 
our  thoughts  flow  in  a  somewhat  different 
channel  from  what  they  are  wont  to  do  upon 
such  sad  occasions.  We  think  how  the  spirit 
which  once  animated  this  form  has  been  now 
for  more  than  half  an  earthly  year  shining  and 
singing  in  the  glory  and  the  bliss  of  heaven. 
She  has  looked  long  upon  the  King  in  his 
beauty ;  she  has  been  led  often  by  the  Lamb 
to  the  living  fountains  of  waters ;  she  has  grown 
familiar  with  the  sights  and  society  of  that 
celestial  realm.  What  are  her  thoughts  and 
feelings  at  this  hour  of  our  still-continued 
mourning?  With  what  calm  eyes  of  untrou- 
bled joy  she  may  even  contemplate  this  scene 
of  sorrow.  "Why,"  she  may  justly  exclaim, 
"  why  weep  for  me,  who  for  these  seven  moons 
of  earth,  without  the  consciousness  of  a  mo- 


200  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

merit's  havingpassed,  have  dwelt  amid  ineffable 
glories,  blessedness,  and  calm  ?  Why  gather 
over  my  long-vacated  form,  over  this  earthly 
mold,  and  lament  my  heavenly  transition  ? 
Nay,  my  friends,  look  up,  believe  my  glory, 
and  be  at  peace." 

Again  we  think  of  the  strange  fact  in  con- 
nection with  these  remains.  They  have  once 
been  committed  to  the  grave;  under  the  warm 
skies  of  that  torrid  summer  this  dust  was  re- 
turned to  earth.  There  it  has  lain  for  many 
months  slumbering  sweetly  beneath  the  roses. 
Again  has  it  appeared  from  its  grave  and  been 
borne  across  the  wild  rolling  seas,  seeking  a 
pleasanter  home  in  its  native  soil.  The  white 
sheet  of  winter  covers  the  earth  with  its  pall, 
and  the  wandering  body  will  gladly  sink  to  its 
rest  beneath  its  frozen  covering.  See  the  sad- 
freighted  vessel  working  its  weary  way  against 
the  hostile  billows. 

"  I  hear  the  noise  about  thy  keel ; 

I  hear  the  bell  struck  in  the  night, 
I  see  the  sailor  at  the  wheel, 

I  see  the  cabin  windows  bright, 

"  Thou  bring'st  the  sailor  to  his  wife. 
And  traveled  men  from  foreign  lands ; 

And  thy  dark  freight's  a  vanislied  life 
And  letters  unto  trembling  hands." 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  201 

It  moves  slowly  forward  as  if  it  were,  as  it  is, 
a  hearse,  and  drops  its  anchor  in  quiet  waters, 
by  the  side  of  the  busiest  and  noisiest  haunts 
of  men. 

Thus  comes  the  dead  again  from  its  grave. 
Not  as  in  the  days  of  Christ  at  his  summons  to 
be  reclothed  with  mortaHty,  not  as  in  the  hour 
which  is  coming  at  that  same  summons  to  be 
clothed  with  immortality,  but  with  its  grave- 
clothes  still  about  it,  with  its  corruptible  see- 
ing yet  no  incorruption,  with  no  light  leaping 
out  of  its  eyes,  no  color  flushing  its  pallid  face, 
no  life  making  it  rise  up  and  walk.  The  grave 
is  here  yet,  with  all  its  horrors,  with  all  its 
darkness.  We  have  brought  the  charnel  house 
into  the  house  of  God.  We  have  moved  the 
tomb  into  the  temple.  The  funeral  train  pass- 
ing from  grave  to  grave  halts  at  this  altar,  but 
not  to  hear  authoritative  words  of  life  spoken 
into  its  dusty  ear.  No  Christ  stands  over  it 
with  this  recreative  word.  It  is  for  the  living, 
not  the  dead,  that  it  is  here.  For  us,  not  for 
itself,  doth  it  pause  here  on  its  last  journey 
and  allow  us  one  glimpse  at  the  couch  where 
the  sleeper  lies,  ere  it  enters  its  final  chamber 
in  the  silent  halls  of  death. 


202  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

Pausing  thus  in  our  sorrowful  presence,  what 
may  we  so  fittingly  dwell  upon  as  the  words 
John  heard  out  of  heaven  ?  With  everything 
that  addresses  the  sight  appalling ;  with  a 
face  of  love  already  changing  into  the  earthy 
mold,  out  of  which  it  was  compacted  in  ra- 
diant beauty  and  life ;  with  a  seven  months' 
residence  in  the  grave,  giving  to  it  a  far 
more  deathly  character  than  they  wear  who 
are  moved  from  the  couch  to  the  coffin,  and 
are  thus  to  our  sensibilities  more  among 
the  living  than  the  dead — this  body  has 
dwelt  among  the  tombs.  It  has  so  long  since 
left  this  upper  air  that  it  has  ceased  to  be 
esteemed  as  one  of  its  inhabitants.  It  has 
become  a  companion  of  the  dead  more  than  of 
the  living. 

To  rise  above  the  depressing  feelings  which 
such  thoughts  create,  to  take  even  these  long- 
dead  remains  in  the  arms  of  faith,  to  fill  these 
long-sightless  eyes  with  more  than  their 
earthly  brightness,  to  make  these  long-silent 
lips  musical  with  more  than  their  former  mel- 
ody and  love,  to  fill  this  long-inanimate  form 
with  celestial  vitality,  we  must  turn  from  it  to 
the  word  of  God,  we  must  listen  with  John  to 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  203 

the  voice  from  heaven,  "  Blessed  are  the  dead 
which  die  in  the  Lord." 

How  that  word  broke  upon  his  ear  in  that 
rocky  isle  amid  the  pains  of  exile  and  brutal 
banishment  !  In  a  den  far  worse  than  that 
which  confined  Bunyan,  while  his  eyes  were 
also  unsealed  to  hardly  less  divine  revelations, 
with  heathen  tortures  of  every  grade  of  cruelty, 
from  the  most  brutal  to  the  most  subtle  and 
severe,  the  aged  servant  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
comforted  by  visions  more  sublime  than  has 
ever  before  unveiled  their  splendors  to  mortal 
eyes.  He  saw  the  wonders  of  heaven  and  hell ; 
he  looked  down  the  future  of  earth  and  beheld 
as  in  a  mirror  the  conflicts  and  conquests  of 
the  cross  ;  he  pierced  the  thick  folds  of  the 
grave  and  triumphed  over  this  last  enemy, 
hearing  through  ears  of  flesh  the  sweetest 
sounds  of  heaven.  He  had  been  in  the  midst 
of  most  contrary  visions.  Now  he  looks,  and 
lo  !  a  Lamb  is  standing  on  Mount  Zion  with  one 
hundred  and  forty-four  thousand  around  him, 
their  foreheads  glowing  with  the  divine  name, 
their  harps  and  voices  pouring  forth  the  new 
song  with  a  volume,  a  majesty,  that  no  human 
ear  can  hear  or  heart  conceive.      Again  the 


204  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

vision  changes,  and  an  angel  is  flying  in  the 
midst  of  heaven  scattering  the  everlasting 
Gospel  like  divine  manna  over  all  the  earth  ; 
and  yet  another  properly  following  him,  who 
declares  that  the  diffusion  of  the  Gospel  has 
resulted  in  the  destruction  of  Babylon,  that 
great  city  which  had  made  all  nations  drink  of 
the  wine  of  the  wrath  of  her  fornication  ;  and 
then  his  successor  appears  proclaiming  the 
unending  torment  of  the  worshipers  of  this 
false  beast,  the  murderers  of  the  holy  and  the 
just,  who  shall  be  tormented  in  the  presence 
of  the  holy  angels  and  in  the  presence  of  the 
Lamb ;  and  then,  as  if  this  dreadful  sight 
made  him  flee  in  horror  from  the  vision,  he 
sees  no  more  the  ascending  smoke  of  that  tor- 
ment blackening  the  skies  with  its  gloom,  he 
hears  not  the  unutterable  groanings  of  those 
who  have  no  rest  day  nor  night.  Another 
voice  comes  stealing  through  the  smokeless 
ether — a  voice  most  musical,  that  might  "cre- 
ate a  soul  under  the  ribs  of  death  " — "  fall- 
ing like  a  falling  star  "  from  out  the  heavens, 
and  sinks  into  the  becalmed  heart  of  the 
seer.  "  I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven."  That 
voice  is  full  of  authority  as  of  sweetness.     It 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  205 

says  to  the  hearer,  "  Write  !  "  Take  that  stylus 
and  record  what  I  command  thee.  Not  for 
thyself  alone,  but  for  hearts  the  wide  world 
over  and  all  time  through  that  are  widowed 
for  my  children  whom  I  have  taken  from  their 
arms.  "  Write  !  "  that  every  suffering  saint 
may  feel  courage  in  enduring  his  great  fight 
of  afflictions.  "  Write !  "  that  a  light  above 
the  brightness  of  the  sun  may  shine  upon 
every  holy  grave.  **  Write ! "  that  every 
tempted  soul  may  be  thus  incited  to  resist 
his  enemy.  "  Write !  "  that  every  fascinated 
sinner,  led  away  of  his  own  lusts  and  enticed, 
may  fear  the  hour  when  these  words  will  not 
gladden  the  hearts  of  his  survivors,  and  may 
flee  to  Him  who  alone  can  make  his  dead  body 
as  his  living  soul  lustrous  in  the  light  of  eternal 
life.  "  Write  !  "  "  Blessed  are  the  dead  which 
die  in  the  Lord."  Even  now,  saith  the  Spirit, 
when  persecutions  rage  the  fiercest,  when 
death  in  its  most  violent  and  dreaded  form 
rushes  upon  us  like  beasts  of  prey — even  now, 
answers  the  Spirit,  in  response  to  the  voice,  as  if 
a  duet  were  being  sung  in  heaven  :  "  Blessed 
are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord." 

With  such  a  voice  from  heaven  dropping  its 


206  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

distillment  into  our  ears  and  hearts,  we  may 
pleasantly,  even  among  the  darkness  and  dis- 
solving nature,  dwell  upon  the  inspiring  theme 
— the  blessedness  of  the  dead  that  die  in  the 
Lord.     Why  are  they  blessed  ? 

First,  because  they  rest  from  their  labors. 
Here  is  incessant,  painful  toil.  John  felt  in  his 
aged  body  the  aches  and  infirmities  of  his  long 
life  ;  his  hard  life  when  a  youth  as  a  fisherman  ; 
his  harder  life  as  a  footsore  wanderer  in  com- 
pany with  the  Son  of  God ;  his  later  and  se- 
verer labors  as  a  preacher,  an  itinerant,  a  suf- 
ferer at  the  hands  of  his  foes  and  even  of  his 
brethren.  How  his  worn-out  frame  looked  for- 
ward to  rest !  Ours  are  less  subjected  to  outward 
hostility,  yet  not  less  subjected  to  toil  and 
weariness.  We,  too,  feel  the  need  of  this  bless- 
edness. Earth  is  a  state  of  toil,  heaven  of 
rest.  Earth  makes  its  dwellers  keep  their  life 
within  them  through  the  sweat  of  their  brows  ; 
the  inhabitants  of  heaven  possess  theirs  in  an 
unconscious  tide  flowing  down  from  the  heights 
of  life  eternal.  All  over  the  world  man  and 
woman  must  rise  to  hard  and  ceaseless  work. 
Burdens  lie  heavy  on  every  shoulder,  "  for  man 
must  work  and  woman  must  weep."     If  a  few, 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  207 

a  very,  very  few,  fortunately  escape  the  condi- 
tion of  physical  toil,  they  do  not  escape  that 
of  work.  The  mind  of  the  merchant  is  more 
worried  than  that  of  his  clerk.  The  general  is 
more  severely  taxed  than  his  musket-bearing 
soldiers.  Black  care  rides  behind  the  officer. 
The  governor  is  the  hardest-worked  man  in  the 
State,  the  president  in  the  nation. 

But  chiefly  is  this  labor  spiritual.  We  con- 
tend not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against 
principalities  and  powers,  against  the  rulers  of 
this  world,  against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high 
places.  How  severe,  how  unceasing,  is  this 
labor,  ever  contending  against  an  unsleeping 
foe  !  With  our  souls  attent  at  every  assault, 
watching  and  warring,  we  must  spend  our 
earthly  days. 

Last,  and  not  least,  are  the  labors  we  discharge 
for  God  and  his  Church.  These  were  doubtless 
chief  in  the  apostle's  mind.  Our  Christian  life  is 
one  of  Christian  work.  Much  of  it  is  performed 
only  with  the  hardest  labor.  Against  the  calls 
of  weary  nature  we  often  come  to  the  worship 
of  the  sanctuary  with  a  worn-out  body ;  we 
drag  ourselves  to  these  heavenly  duties.  Our 
Christian  life  in  all  its  phases  is  work.     There. 


208  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

fore  we  look  forward  to  the  hours  of  rest,  and 
cry  with  one  who  has  now  found  the  boon  she 
sought : 

"  For  my  heart  that  erst  did  yo 

Most  like  a  tired  child  at  show, 

That  sees  througli  tears  the  juggler's  leap, 

Would  now  its  wearied  vision  close. 

Would  childlike  in  His  love  repose 

Who  '  giveth  his  beloved  sleep.'  " 

In  contrast  with  this  weariness  heaven  smiles 
upon  us,  a  place  of  rest.  *'  They  rest  from 
their  labors"  is  the  first  element  of  that  celes- 
tial blessedness.  Toil  of  body,  mind,  and  heart, 
toil  against  sin  and  self  and  Satan — these  are 
changed  to  spontaneous,  unwearied,  invigorat- 
ing exercises  of  soul  and  spirit.  The  lower 
services  in  which  we  may  then  engage  are 
infinitely  easier  than  the  easiest  we  here  per- 
form. No  play  on  earth  is  so  delightful  as  the 
meanest  work  of  heaven.  No  outrushing  of 
human  love  upon  its  object  is  so  unconsciously 
self-conscious  as  the  lowest  exercise  of  heavenly 
passion.  They  rest  from  their  labors.  They 
move  out  on  every  line  of  life  like  the  light 
that  streams  fleetly  and  untired  from  sun 
and  star.  The  service  of  song,  of  study,  of 
ministration  of  the   saints,  of  contention  with 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  209 

the  devil  and  his  angels,  of  simplest  thought 
and  swifter  love,  whatever  form  and  expres- 
sion that  infinite  life  assumes,  it  is  without 
weariness,  without  toil.  "  Blessed  are  the  dead 
which  die  in  the  Lord,  for  they  rest  from  their 
labors." 

Yet  again  are  they  blessed  because  their 
works  do  follow  them.  Every  one  on  earth 
desires  such  a  competence  as  will  secure  him 
an  income  after  he  has  ceased  from  labor.  If 
it  were  told  you  that  you  could  obtain  by  dili- 
gent labor  a  fund  which  would  be  a  constant 
source  of  support  to  you  through  the  unlimited 
and  unknown  ages  before  you,  it  seems  as  if 
every  one  would  hasten  to  secure  such  a  treas- 
ure. Yet  such  an  opportunity  is  offered  you. 
You  may  so  invest  the  energies  of  soul  and 
body  that  they  may  supply  your  soul  with  new 
life  in  every  hour  of  that  coming  eternity. 
How  the  work  of  Abel  has  followed  him ! 
What  myriads  have  felt  the  strength  of  that 
example  and  been  sustained  in  multitudinous 
temptations  by  his  brave  resistance  of  tempta- 
tion at  the  cost  of  his  life.  So  have  the  works, 
and  so  still  do  the  works,  of  Moses  follow  him, 

and  those  of  Abraham,  and  those  of  the  proph- 
14 


210  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

ets  and  apostles  and  martyrs.  The  faith  of 
Paul,  the  love  of  John,  the  penitence  of  Peter, 
are  exhaustless  springs,  and  even  seas,  that  not 
only  refresh  the  generations  of  earth,  but  their 
own  souls  in  heaven.  Good  deeds  can  never 
die.  Death  hath  no  dominion  over  them. 
He  who  performs  them  wins  for  himself  the 
power  of  endless  life.  However  obscure,  how- 
ever ignoble  he  may  be,  however  humble  his 
service,  he  has  opened  a  fountain  whose  waters 
fail  not.  Like  Alcaeus,  which  from  its  native 
isle  flowed  through  the  salt  sea  fresh  and 
sweet,  and  bubbled  up  in  the  higher  and 
wider  lands  of  the  continent,  so  does  this 
deed  of  yours,  this  act  of  faith  and  grace  and 
love,  flow  from  this  little  islet  of  time  under 
the  salt  sea  of  death  and  break  forth  in  bright- 
ness and  refreshment  on  the  boundless  high- 
lands of  eternity. 

Other  grounds  of  the  blessedness  of  the 
righteous  dead  rise  before  us.  They  see  His 
face  and  his  name  is  in  their  foreheads.  They 
hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any  more, 
neither  doth  the  sun  light  on  them,  nor  any 
heat,  but  the  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of 
them   doth  feed  them  and  lead  them  to  living 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  21 1 

fountains  of  water.  They  dwell  upon  the 
mysteries  and  marvels  of  redeeming  grace. 
They  fly  on  errands  of  mercy 

"  From  star  to  luminous  star, 
As  far  as  the  universe  wheels  its  flaming  spheres." 

They  recline  beneath  the  trees  on  the  banks  of 
the  living  river,  holding  converse  such  as  no 
mortal  may  know  ;  a  depth,  a  fullness,  a  sweet- 
ness of  love  that  poet  never  fancied  nor  love 
felt.  Above  all  is  that  all-embracing  word — 
they  see  His  face,  and  their  joy  is  full.  "  All 
my  friends  will  be  there  and  Jesus  will  be 
there,"  were  the  dying  words  of  one  who  has 
now  these  five  years  been  with  him  where  he  is. 

"  They  sit  around  his  gracious  throne, 
And  dwell  where  Jesus  is." 

O,  the  blessedness  of  the  dead  who  die  in  the 
Lord! 

Two  thoughts  conclude  our  remarks : 
First,  the  brevity  of  her  life  does  not  prove 
that  life  unfinished.  A  miniature  inay  be  as 
perfect  as  the  full-sized  picture.  "  That  life  is 
long  which  answers  life's  great  end."  The  end 
of  life  is  to  fear  God  and  keep  his  command- 
ments. A  completed  life  is  one  rounded  with 
a  perfect  faith.     No  true  life,  in  one  sense,  can 


212  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

be  complete  here  or  ever.  It  is  a  line,  not  a 
circle ;  a  line  of  infinite  extent,  along  which 
the  expanding  soul  unvvearily  travels.  But  an 
earthly  life,  though  brief  as  a  summer's  day,  if 
it  exhibit  the  graces  of  Christian  faith,  has  ac- 
complished its  mission.  Christ  exclaimed,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-three,  "  It  is  finished  !  "  Paul 
cannot  say  the  same  until  seventy  winters  have 
withered  his  frame,  and  even  then  with  a  far 
less  sense  of  completeness  than  was  felt  by  his 
Lord  and  Master  after  three  years  of  his  min- 
istry. Abel  finished  his  course  early,  Methu- 
selah late;  Stephen  died  young,  John  in  the 
total  decrepitude  of  exhausted  age ;  John  the 
Baptist  was  a  youthful  preacher  when  suddenly 
summoned  away,  Peter  went  trembling  with 
years  to  his  cross  and  crown;  John  Huss  as- 
cended in  his  chariot  of  fire  while  still  in  his 
early  prime,  Polycarp  carried  the  weight  of 
eighty  years  to  his  triumphant  death.  So  will 
it  always  be.  "  Her  sun  goeth  down  while  it 
is  yet  day,"  will  yet  be  said  over  many  a  maid- 
en's coffin.  "  He  dies  in  the  flower  of  his 
days,"  will  yet  be  placed  on  many  a  headstone. 
But,  long  or  short,  if  you  have  given  your  heart 
to  Jesus,  if  you  have  served  him  with  a  hum- 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  213 

ble  and  steadfast  mind,  your  life  will  have  a 
finished  beauty  that  all  will  admire  and  long 
to  imitate.  Your  name  will  be  as  ointment 
poured  forth.  Your  friends  and  foes  shall 
alike  arise  and  call  you  blessed. 

But,  again,  remember  that  only  those  who 
die  in  the  Lord  have  this  blessedness  pro- 
nounced upon  them.  The  dreamy  ears  of 
John  caught  no  words  saying  unto  him, 
"  Write,  Blessed  are  all  the  dead,  for  all  die  in 
the  Lord."  Nay,  there  was  silence  as  to  many 
— a  silence  how  deep,  how  dreadful !  It  is  a 
night  of  impenetrable  darkness.  A  flash  of 
light  falls  on  a  single  spot ;  it  not  only  makes 
that  spot  the  brighter,  it  makes  all  else  the 
darker ;  the  gloom  is  the  thicker  by  contrast 
with  that  radiance.  So  the  grave  is  covered 
with  a  pierceless  pall.  Heavy,  thick,  solid  as  a 
mountain  of  coal,  stands  this  black  wall  of 
death.  A  light  comes  glimmering  sweetly  from 
the  heavens  and  rests  upon  some  graves ; 
through  the  churchyard  you  see  these  glitter- 
ing mounds.  But  that  light  only  makes  the 
un illuminated  graves  the  more  awfully  dark 
and  dreadful.  No  brightness  there !  Alas ! 
alas !   how  great  is.  that  darkness !     "  Where 


214  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

shall  the  wicked  and  the  ungodly  appear?" 
"  Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord." 
What  is  their  fate  who  do  not  thus  die?  No 
light  upon  their  faces,  none  upon  their  graves, 
none  upon  their  futures.  We  cannot  say 
this  doctrine  is  of  human  device.  Here  is 
a  confirming  word  out  of  heaven.  Nay,  here 
is  the  originating  and  establishing  word.  Man 
would  save  all  loosely  and  indiscriminately, 
as  criminals  would  never  punish  criminals. 
God  from  heaven  declares  the  difference. 
What  a  difference!  How  unutterable!  How 
awful ! 

Let  this  picture  hang  in  the  gallery  of  your 
memory  with  that  ever-increasing  company  of 
those  you  have  known  and  loved  in  the  flesh, 
that  have  put  off  the  earthly  and  put  on  the 
heavenly.  Among  them  all  shines  His  counte- 
nance more  marred  than  any  man's,  who  gave 
them  the  grace  by  which  they  triumphed  over 
death,  sin,  and  hell,  and  are  forever  resting  and 
rejoicing  in  the  heaven  of  heavens.  So  may 
we  serve  and  wait  that  when  our  hour  comes 
we  too  may  smile  upon  the  fatal  messenger, 
cast  ourselves  gladly  into  his  once  fearful  arms, 
and  be  borne  to  the  glorious  company  who 


THE  BLESSED  DEAD.  215 

have  washed  their  robes  and  made  them  white 
in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  ! 

*'  Then  weep  not,  if  you  love  her,  that  her  tedious  toil  is  done  ; 
O  weep  not,  if  you  love  her,  that  her  holy  rest  is  won. 
There  should  be  gladness  in  your  thoughts  and  smiles  upon 

your  brow  ; 
For  will  she  not  be  happy  there  ?     Is  she  not  happy  now  ? 

"  And  you  will  learn  to  talk  of  her  ;  and,  after  many  years, 
The  tears  which  you  shall  shed  for  her  will  not  be  bitter  tears  ; 
When  you  shall  tell  each  other,  with  a  fond  and  thankful  pride. 
In  what  purity  she  lived  and  in  what  peacefulness  she  died." 


"  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall 
into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abidelh  alone  ;  but  if  it  die,  it 
bringeth  forth  much  fruit." — John  xii,  24. 

"  The  path  of  duty  was  the  way  to  glory : 
He  that  walks  it,  only  thirsting 
For  the  right,  andjearns  to  deaden 
Love  of  self,  before  his  journey  closes, 
He  shall  find  the  stubborn  thistle  bursting 
Into  glossy  purples,  which  outredden 
All  voluptuous  garden  roses. 

"  The  path  of  duty  was  the  way  to  glory : 

He  that  ever  following  her  commands, 

On  with  toil  of  heart  and  knees  and  hands. 

Through  the  long  gorge  to  the  far  light  has  won 

His  path  upward,  and  prevailed. 

Shall  find  the  toppling  crags  of  duty  scaled 

Are  close  upon  the  shining  table-lands 

To  which  our  God  himself  is  moon  and  sun." 


VIII. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER. 

TAEATH  itself  is  rarely  serviceable  to  the 
•'^  living.  The  testimonies  of  the  dying 
may  avail  for  our  warning  or  comfort.  Their 
mode  of  meeting  the  last  enemy,  their  looks  and 
words  as  they  pass  into  the  shadow,  may  have 
influences  baleful  or  blessed  upon  the  survivors  ; 
but  this  is  the  service  the  ever-living  soul  pays 
to  the  anxiously  peering  soul.  It  is  not  from 
the  death  itself  that  any  virtue  goes  out ;  that 
is  still  a  "  cold  obstruction,"  imparting  no  life 
to  the  living.  It  is  yet  a  masked  battery  that 
must  be  assailed  and  subdued.  It  is  victory 
over  it  that  gives  it  all  its  value,  as  battlefields 
are  famous  not  because  of  themselves,  but  be- 
cause of  the  deeds  done  there.  Nay,  more  ;  it  is 
like  famous  fortifications  subdued,  that  silently 
commend  their  conqueror.  So  death  in  the 
Christian  ordinarily  is  only  made  to  praise  its 
destroyer.  But  there  are  some  instances  in 
which  it  can  be  turned  to  absolute  benefit. 
The    dross    becomes   gold,  the   foe    becomes 


218  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

friendly,  the  battery  is  turned  against  itself, 
death  is  the  seat  of  life.  "  Out  of  the  eater 
came  forth  meat,  and  out  of  the  strong  came 
forth  sweetness." 

This  occurs  in  only  one  instance  among 
the  innumerable  modes  of  earthly  departure. 
Only  one  can  be  said  to  fulfill  the  conditions 
of  the  text,  the  dying  grain  that  brings  forth 
much  fruit :  it  is  when  death  is  voluntarily 
surrendered  for  the  sake  of  the  truth. 

One  may  die  ever  so  patiently  and  submis- 
sively. The  mother  may  unclasp  her  dying 
arms  from  her  babe  and  calmly  leave  her  nurs- 
ling to  the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  for- 
tune. The  husband  may  submissively  resign 
his  companion  to  the  harsh  embraces  of  the 
world.  Every  such  sort  of  tender  resignation 
to  inevitable  fate  is  touching,  is  religious,  is  valu- 
able in  itself.  But  the  stroke  that  compels 
such  submission  is  without  vitality.  As  well 
say  that  the  block,  or  the  gallows,  which  occa- 
sions the  heroism  or  saintliness  of  a  Mary  A. 
Rowland,  a  Jane  Grey,  an  Algernon  Sidney,  or 
a  John  Brown,  is  itself  praiseworthy  as  to  say 
that  such  endurance  of  fate  makes  the  fate  it- 
self honorable. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  219 

Here  as  elsewhere  in  all  questions  of  moral- 
ity, voluntariness  is  the  vital  center.  Had  not 
Christ  said,  "  I  lay  down  my  life  for  myself," 
his  submission  would  not  have  subdued  death 
and  led  captivity  captive.  It  is  because  of 
the  freedom,  by  which,  being  able  to  live,  he 
chose  to  die,  that  his  death  was  fruitful. 

But  this  freedom  must  be  exercised  for  high 
and  holy  ends,  else  it  is  even  more  ignoble  than 
compulsion.  If  one  says,  "  I  have  power  over 
my  life,  I  hereby  take  it  away,"  his  name  is  cast 
out  as  evil,  second  only  to  his  that  violently 
snatches  away  the  life  of  his  neighbor.  His 
life  is  his,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  preserve.  He 
can  sacrifice  it  only  at  the  especial  command  of 
God.  If  this  command  gives  him  the  privilege 
of  obedience  or  disobedience,  sets  before  him 
death  and  life,  and  says  "Choose  ye,"  at  the  same 
time  impressing  most  upon  his  conscience  that 
the  choice  of  death  is  agreeable  to  the  divine 
will,  then  his  acceptance  of  death  not  only 
casts  a  flush  upon  that  pallid  face,  not  only 
clothes  the  ghastly  horror  with  a  momentary 
loveliness  not  its  own,  but  transforms  it  into  a 
creature  full  of  life,  bestowing  of  its  fullness 
unto  all  generations. 


220  .  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

Such  a  death  is  the  martyr's,  when  the  utter- 
ance of  a  single  word,  one  prostration  in  the 
house  of  sin,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  Peter  and 
John  before  the  Sanhedrin,  the  high  court 
of  the  ancestral  faith,  silence  alone,  will  secure 
liberty  and  life ;  and  when  the  soul,  rising  su- 
perior to  the  fears  that  confront  it,  and  even 
consenting  not  merely  to  the  surrendering  of  an 
arm  or  the  out-plucking  of  an  eye,  but  to  the 
entire  destruction  of  the  body,  willingly  and 
prayerfully  lays  this  great  sacrifice  upon  the 
altar,  surpassing  Abraham's  courage  in  that 
it  raises  the  knife,  not  over  another,  but  over 
himself — such  a  soul  exalts  death  into  honor 
and  power  and  makes  it  bring  forth  much 
fruit. 

Into  this  kind  of  dying  came  the  self-sacri- 
fices of  our  soldiery.  Not  that  the  ordinary 
deaths  of  soldiers,  even  when  volunteers,  have 
this  high  and  faithful  nature.  Thousands  of 
Americans  hastened  to  Mexico  professedly  to 
avenge  our  nation  for  insults  or  to  wreak  pay- 
ment for  defaulters,  but  really  to  enlarge  our 
then  enormous  slave  empire.  The  volunteers 
in  such  a  cause,  though  unto  death,  gain  no 
divine  laurels.      No  more  do  the  men  of  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  221 

South  who  SO  freely  cast  themselves  into  the 
arms  of  destruction  and  laugh  at  its  approach. 
They  are  volunteers  of  him  who  is  the  father 
of  death.  His  wages,  as  his  servants,  will 
they  receive.  In  eternal  dishonor  shall  their 
names  shine  forth.  Men  who,  for  the  sake  of 
a  lie,  perpetuate  the  most  fiendish  system 
that  has  cursed  the  earth,  overthrow  the  most 
beneficent  government  that  ever  existed,  gain 
full  charter  for  every  unbridled  passion,  that 
they  may  indulge  not  in  momentary  rapine 
and  lust,  as  the  French  myrmidons  in  the 
sacked  towns  of  Mexico,  but,  with  an  unceas- 
ing, universal  hideousness  of  crime,  devot- 
ing one  third  of  their  people  to  the  purpose 
of  traffic  and  the  more  hellish  purposes  of 
passion  —  such  soldiers,  however  brave,  can 
have  no  honors  from  man  or  God  if,  under  the 
impulses  of  pride  and  profligacy,  they  hurl 
themselves  against  the  balls  and  bayonets  of 
righteousness  and  liberty.  Mere  voluntariness 
of  self-sacrifice  does  not  insure  the  divine  and 
abounding  vitality  which  Christ  commends  in 
word  and  act.  It  must  have  in  it  the  mar- 
tyr element.  Without  this  it  is  nothing,  or 
worse  than  nothinsf.     With  this  it  is  instinct 


222  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

with  life.  Our  soldiers  are  substantially  mar- 
tyrs. They  are  a  sacrifice  freely  offered  for 
the  salvation,  not  of  the  law  alone,  but  of 
right,  of  justice,  of  piety,  of  Christ.  They  are 
akin  to  Abel,  who  clung  to  the  right  at  the 
cost  of  his  life  ;  to  Isaiah,  who  laid  his  life 
upon  the  altar  of  principle  :  to  the  apostles, 
who  counted  not  their  lives  dear  unto  them- 
selves ;  to  millions  of  faithful  ones  who  have 
resisted  unto  blood,  and  who  rejoice  that  they 
were  counted  worthy  to  fill  up  that  which  re- 
maineth  behind  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ. 

How  do  these  deaths  produce  life  ?  Look- 
ing at  them  we  can  easily  see  how  those  of  our 
soldiers  shall  have  like  fecundity. 

Their  deaths  were  productive  of  life  by 
the  firmness  and  consistency  which  they  im- 
parted to  the  principles  they  advocated.  Prin- 
ciples are  mere  emotions  unless  compacted  by 
action.  It  is  easy  to  talk  virtue  ;  the  difficulty 
is  to  act  virtuously.  This  difficulty  arises  from 
two  sorts  of  foes,  the  outward  and  the  inward. 
The  latter  is  the  fort  to  be  attacked.  We 
must  conquer  ourselves.  Virtue  must  sit  sov- 
ereign in  our  souls.  Then  come  the  inner- 
works  ;  we  must  fortify  our  virtue  against  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  223 

seductions  and  against  the  assaults  of  Satan. 
It  must  take  flesh,  be  revealed  in  life  and 
action.  If  attacked,  it  must  resist.  If  offered 
death  or  dishonor,  it  must  say  calmly,  but  reso- 
lutely, "  Get  thee  behind  me.  Satan!"  If  Sa- 
tan will  not  get  behind,  but  leaps  upon  and 
seeks  its  destruction,  it  must  still  say,  "Thou 
canst  not  prevail  over  me,  O  mine  enemy." 
If  then  its  enemy  and  God's  casts  it  into 
prison  and  makes  its  feet  fast  in  the  stocks,  if 
it  is  hated  even  to  death,  in  those  hours  virtue 
is  in  a  rapid  state  of  crystallization.  The  in- 
choate and  filmy  mass  of  resolves  and  desires 
is  become  strong,  hard,  and  brilliant  as  the  dia- 
monds of  angels.  Virtue  becomes  a  pillar  of 
salt,  not  a  type  of  vengeance  and  backsliding, 
but  of  savor,  of  glory,  of  health,  of  life  to  all 
generations.  How  the  world  casts^  reverent 
eyes  on  Stephen  with  his  uplifted  face  smitten 
alike  by  the  stones  of  his  murderers  and  the 
glory  of  his  Redeemer !  Never  will  it  cease 
to  paint  and  carve  the  tired  but  resolute  Ma- 
donna, the  youthful  Sebastian  shot  through 
with  many  arrows,  the  flayed  Bartholomew,  the 
roasting  Lawrence,  the  beheaded  Paul,  the 
crucified  Peter,  and,  above  all,  Him  who  trod 


224,  CHRIST  US  COX  SOLA  TOR. 

the  wine  press  of  the  wrath  of  God  alone, 
whose  pierced  head  and  hands  and  feet  and 
side  bear  testimony  to  his  sufferings  and  en- 
durance. .These  bear  witness  to  the  strength 
of  grace;  they  are  characters  cut  in  the  crj'stal 
of  the  New  Jerusalem.  In  them  death  is  trans- 
figured. Its  fearful  aspects  are  lost  in  celestial 
beauty,  its  devouring  destruction  in  abounding 
life.  Whoever  studies  them  feels  the  stirrings 
and  strengthenings  of  the  divine  power  they 
shoot  forth.  Life  and  the  despairing  soul  of 
the  struggler,  or  the  dead  soul  of  the  supine, 
alike  awake  and  arise  under  their  stimulating 
presence. 

Thus  does  death,  when  voluntarily  suffered 
in  behalf  of  principle,  become  the  very  center 
and  author  of  life  ;  thus  does  the  repulsion  be- 
come attraction,  its  weakness  strength,  its  de- 
formity beauty.  Even  its  sin,  of  which  it  was 
by  nature  the  wages  and  consummation — for 
sin  when  it  is  finished  bringeth  forth  death— 
under  the  mighty  transmutations  of  grace  be- 
comes holiness  itself.  So  that  death  is  no  more 
death  ;  it  is  life  eternal.  That  is  the  hour  and 
the  power  of  light ;  that  reveals  the  glory  of 
virtue;  that   changes  the  black  and    burning 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  225 

coal  into  the  white  throbbing  diamond.  We 
wear  the  jewel  of  such  death  over  our  hearts 
as  our  chief  ornament.  We  proudly  set  it  on 
our  foreheads,  "  Death  baleful  and  horrible  !  " 
Look  there  !  See  the  glory  of  that  dying.  See 
that  concentration  of  principles.  That  soul 
was  offered  release  on  conditions  of  simple 
obeisance  to  idols  of  present  popularity  and 
power.  It  scorned  deliverance  on  those  terms. 
It  hasted  to  meet  the  threatened  punishment, 
and  lo !  the  victim  becomes  the  v'ictor.  Pain 
becomes  pleasure,  death  is  made  alive. 

How  mightily  doth  principle  grow  and  multi- 
ply in  such  ground  !  The  black  lava  becomes 
a  fruitful  soil  which  nourishes  the  richest  of  all 
the  vines  of  Europe  ;  whose  wine,  so  rare,  is 
called  by  the  seemingly  profane  name  of 
LachrymjE  Christi,  or  tears  of  Christ.  Is  it 
not  a  prophetic  rather  than  a  profane  name? 
Does  it  not  teach  us  that  the  most  deadly 
soils,  the  very  waves  of  the  lake  of  fire  and 
brimstone,  under  the  influence  of  divine  shine 
and  shower,  can  become  as  the  garden  of  the 
Lord?  that  indeed  the  tears  of  Christ,  pa- 
tient and  steadfast  unto  death — a  dreadful  soil 

— distill  exquisite    balsam    for   every  fainting 
16 


226  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

soul  ?     Thus  is  death  fruitful  when  voluntarily 
embraced  for  the  sake  of  truth. 

But  such  death  is  life  because  of  the  zeal 
it  imparts.  It  is  not  only  a  life  revealer,  it  is 
a  life  imparter.  We  behold,  we  feel,  the  ener- 
gies of  such  victories.  As  we  walk  this  gallery 
of  the  real  Caesars,  conquerors  of  themselves 
and  sin,  we  feel  that  they  confer  upon  us  their 
gracious  powers.  They  walk  with  us ;  they 
descend  like  the  angels  into  the  garden  to 
strengthen  us  in  our  great  agony.  How  Paul, 
in  prison  and  approaching  death,  must  have 
been  fortified  with  the  animating  calmness  and 
courage  of  Stephen  !  How  later  worthies  have 
been  upheld  by  the  vigor  of  their  earlier  lead- 
ers! The  heroes  of  faith  enumerated  in  the 
eleventh  of  Hebrews,  who  out  of  weakness  were 
made  strong,  have  moved  millions  of  kindred 
souls  for  like  fierce  encounters.  Every  French- 
man was  a  Napoleon  in  the  day  of  his  power. 
So  was  every  Englishman  a  Wellington.  So 
was  every  American  a  Washington.  The  idol 
of  the  age  reproduces  himself  a  millionfold  on 
the  reduplicating  mirror  of  the  human  heart. 
Thus  doth  principle  embodied  in  sacrifice 
spring  up  and  bring  forth  fruit  a  hundredfold. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  227 

Who  reads  the  heroic  life  of  Judson  that  does 
not  say,  *'  Let  me  Hve  such  a  Hfe  of  the  right- 
eous?" Who  gazes  upon  the  cell  of  Huss,  or 
the  green  grassplot  where  he  completed  his 
struggle  and  victory,  that  does  not  exclaim, 
**  My  soul  would  be  alike  faithful  unto  death  ?  " 
The  places  where  the  good  man  meets  a  vio- 
lent fate  are  vastly  nearer  heaven  than  the 
quiet  chambers  whence  he  is  called  to  God. 
These  are  shrines  of  power  ;  they  recreate  the 
souls  that  visit  them.  The  center  of  an  .Oxford 
street  where  the  fires  curled  around  Cranmer's 
head  and  Latimer's  form;  the  little  cattle- 
penned  market  place  of  Smithfield,  with  its 
ever-burning  altar,  where  the  sacrifice  of  Rog- 
ers, and  hundreds  of  other  victims,  is  ever  con- 
suming and  never  consumed  ;  the  spot  where 
Paul  showed  that  his  counting  not  his  life 
dear  unto  himself  was  not  a  vain  boast,  and 
where  Peter  was  girded  by  another  and  carried 
whither  he  would  not,  yet  did  not  refuse  to 
go — these,  scattered  over  the  earth,  are  the 
ever-blooming  gardens  in  what  would  other- 
wise be  a  wilderness  of  dry  bones.  They  make 
man's  Hfe  seem  something — be  something. 
They  feed  the  wasting  soul  with  strength  and 


228  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

joy.  We  eat  of  their  faith  and  are  made 
strong.  We  drink  of  this  divine  brook  in 
the  way  of  our  pilgrimage  and  Hft  up  our 
heads. 

Thus  does  the  incarnation  of  principles  in 
the  last  and  mightiest  trials  of  life  change  the 
whole  character  of  death  itself  and  make  it  the 
highest  of  the  revelations  of  human  strength. 
Out  of  the  dead  lion  comes  forth  the  reviving 
honey;  out  of  the  awful  darkness  breaks 
forth  the  illustrious  morning ;  out  of  the  un- 
utterable weakness  leaps  unutterable  strength  ; 
out  of  the  very  offspring  and  product  and 
even  divine  punishment  for  sin  rises  the  per- 
fection of  beauty,  holiness,  and  power.  The 
truth  spreads  and  prevails  in  the  very  act  and 
article  of  its  seeming  overthrow. 

Thus  is  it  in  the  principles  involved  in  this 
struggle  and  the  hero  martyr  in  which  they 
are  embodied.  Though  these  principles  are 
not  the  complete  and  highest  expression  of 
revealed  truth,  they  are  its  lesser  and  vital  em- 
bodiment, and  if  the  testifiers  of  the  fullness 
of  the  Gospel  even  unto  death  minister  to  the 
eternal  salvation  of  man,  no  less  do  these  who 
bravely  lay  down  their  lives  for  the  political 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  229 

and  social  regeneration  of  the  race.  If  we 
look  at  these  principles,  we  shall  see  the  saintly 
service  of  their  advocates. 

We  have  dwelt  on  the  great  principles 
involved  in  this  struggle  because  we  do  not 
class  the  death  of  him  whom  we  have  gathered 
together  to  sympathize  over  among  those  who 
fall  by  ordinary  casualty.  It  was  not  by  acci- 
dent or  disease  that  he  perished ;  not  by  an 
unknown  and  indiscernible  visitation  of  God, 
but  by  a  clear  and  conscious  sacrifice  of  him- 
self, as  much  so  as  was  that  of  Stephen  or  Paul. 
He  enters  the  list  of  those  who,  Christ  says, 
"  lay  down  their  lives."  Has  he  a  right  to  the 
honors  of  martyrdom  ?  That  depends  on  two 
points :  First,  were  the  objects  for  which  he 
died  such  as  God  especially  approves  and  for 
which  he  calls  his  servants  to  offer  up  their 
lives?  And,  secondly,  was  he  himself  a  con- 
scious and  willing  servant  of  his  Lord  and  Mas- 
ter in  the  highest  duties  and  services  to  which 
he  summons  every  soul?  The  first,  we  have 
seen,  is  such  that  God  approves.  If  there  was 
ever  a  war  justified  in  heaven  since  the  war 
that  occurred  there  when  rebellious  angels 
sought  to  break  up  its  union  and  annihilate  its 


230  CIJRJS  TVS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

authority,  its  liberty,  its  virtue,  that  war  is  the 
one  we  are  waging. 

If  any  lives  were  ever  justly  sacrificed  upon 
the  bloody  field  of  battle,  then  are  those 
we  have  poured  forth  in  that  category.  Did 
Zwingli  fall  for  the  defense  of  Protestant  liber- 
ties, with  the  approval  of  Heaven  upon  his 
course  ;  did  Ziska  and  Gustavus  Adolphus  and 
the  Elector  Frederick  and  a  great  multitude  of 
adherents  give  their  lives  rightfully  for  the  re- 
demption of  Germany  from  the  yoke  of  papacy ; 
did  Cromwell  rightfully  kill  with  fire  and  sword 
absolutism  in  England ;  did  our  fathers  plant 
themselves, with  God's  blessing,  upon  Lexing- 
ton Green,  at  Concord  Bridge,  and  at  Bunker 
Hill?  then  do  the  patriot  soldiers  of  this 
nation  serve  God  in  their  heroic  sacrifice. 
They  seek  the  perpetuation  of  liberty,  its 
extension,  its  consolidation.  They  die  for  the 
dearest  and  grandest  of  human  rights  that  can 
be  conferred  upon  man.  They  are  and  shall 
ever  be  enrolled  upon  the  holy  list  of  martyrs 
to  principle,  to  truth,  to  ,God.  But  are  they 
saints,  worthy  martyrs  and  confessors  of  a 
worthy  cause?  That  depends  upon  whether 
they  personally  accepted  and  served  the  Lord 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  231 

Jesus.  Many  have  been  slain  in  a  good  cause 
that  were  not  good  men.  Millions  followed 
Moses  into  the  wilderness  seemingly  accepting 
God  as  their  Lord  in  preference  to  the  idols  of 
Egypt ;  yet  we  are  told  God  was  angry  with 
them  and  slew  them  in  the  desert  because  of 
their  unbelief.  It  will  not  do  to  let  down  our 
great  principles  of  religion  any  more  than  it  does 
our  principles  of  liberty,  though  these  seemingly 
stand  aside  for  the  moment.  A  wicked,  profane, 
drunken,  licentious  soldier  who  dies  in  battle 
is  not  an  heir  of  heaven,  though  he  offer  him- 
self freely  for  a  noble  cause.  Mercenary  or 
baser  motives  may  prompt  his  conduct ;  and  if 
the  motive  is  noble,  the  conduct  must  also  be, 
if  he  would  be  crowned  lawfully  in  heaven. 

Our  friend  had  joined  the  army  of  Christ 
before  he  did  that  of  his  country.  He  had 
served  his  Lord  before  he  did  his  general. 

To  us  remain  certain  duties  which  we  must 
not  omit  to  mention.  We  must  cherish  the 
memory  of  these  patriot  souls.  They  give 
their  lives  for  us.  They  seek  to  save  this 
nation  from  destruction.  They  seek  to  inaugu- 
rate the  era  of  human  brotherhood.  By  their 
deaths  we  live.     Let  us  not  forget  them.     We 


232  CH  JUSTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

should  erect  monuments  to  their  honor ;  we 
should  frequent  their  resting-places  ;  we  should 
dwell  upon  their  virtues ;  we  should  tell  the 
storyof  their  valor  to  our  children  and  children's 
children  ;  we  must  also  emulate  their  patriot- 
ism. They  gave  their  lives.  What  give  we  ? 
They  are  martyrs.  Are  we  worthy  to  be  their 
friends  and  brethren  ?  Are  we  selfish,  cold, 
timid,  contentious,  groveling  ?  or  do  we  let  their 
spirits  raise  ours  to  their  own  exaltation  ?  Re- 
member for  what  they  died.  If  they  did  not 
see  all  the  great  truths  involved  in  this  struggle, 
they  did  the  chief.  Their  souls  thrilled  with 
the  loftiest  enthusiasm.  They  were  caught  in 
the  inspiration  that  moved  like  a  whirlwind 
divine  over  the  whole  land.  How  they  were 
lifted  up  and  borne  forward  through  pain,  and 
hunger,  and  peril,  and  battle,  and  bloody  death ! 
How  that  flag  that  lolls  so  spiritlessly  before 
your  careless  eyes  stirred  their  souls  with 
divinest  fire  !  Let  us  feel  the  mighty  impulse 
that  possessed  their  souls.  Let  us  dedicate 
ourselves  to  the  great  ideas  for  which  they  laid 
down  their  lives,  Let  us  carry  forward  this 
truth — the  brotherhood  of  man  in  Christ,  It 
maybe  that  many  a  bloody  hour  shall  pour  its 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLDIER.  233 

rain  on  us  before  that  blessed  morning  shines. 
It  may  be  that  we  shall  be  called  to  follow  them 
into  the  conflict  and  the  consummation.  Let 
us  not  fear  to  follow  where  these  lead.  Let 
us,  too,  be  willing  to  die  for  the  salvation  of 
this  land,  which  is  the  salvation  of  all  lands. 

Our  heroes  leave  the  country  they  die  for, 
the  commander  they  fight  under,  the  comrades 
they  fight  with  ;  but  'tis  not  so  with  Christ's 
soldiers.  They  go  to  the  country  for  which 
they  fight  even  in  dying  for  it.  They  see  and 
serve  their  great  Commander  forever.  They 
meet  their  old  comrades  in  arms,  and  rejoice 
with  them  to  all  eternity.  In  heaven's  armory 
they  hang  their  warworn  weapons.  Above 
the  throne  waves  their  rent  and  riddled  but 
triumphant  flag.  Among  its  gardens  they  are 
instantly  and  eternally  healed.  Seek  now, 
jiow,  that  glorious  service.  Dedicate  your- 
selves to  Christ  and  your  country,  to  truth 
and  to  God.  Be  a  witness  for  it  with  your 
tongue  and  your  life,  and,  if  it  be  the  will  of 
God,  seal  it  with  your  death.  Then  shall  you 
enjoy  the  honors  in  earth  and  heaven  that 
shall  ever  be  paid  to  martyrs  for  the  cause  of 
man,  the  cause  of  God. 


"  For  now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly ;  but  then  face 
to  face." — I  Cor.  xiii,  12. 


"  Calm  on  the  bosom  of  thy  God, 
Sweet  spirit,  rest  thee  now  ; 

E'en  while  with  us  thy  footsteps  trod 
His  seal  was  on  thy  brow. 

"  Dust  to  thy  narrow  house  beneath, 

Soul  to  thy  rest  on  high  ; 
They  that  have  seen  thy  look  in  death 

No  more  may  fear  to  die." 


IX. 
THE   ENIGMA   SOLVED. 

\T  7E  have  all  seen  beloved  souls  pass 
•  '  through  the  gates  of  exceeding  suffer- 
ing and  of  death  into  the  city,  the  city  which 
hath  foundations  of  eternal  solidity,  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God.  As  we  have  beheld 
them  treading  that  path  of  agony  unattended 
by  any  earthly  friend,  as  we  have  seen  the 
spirit  writhing  in  its  house  of  torture,  and 
finally,  after  days  of  struggling,  escape  from 
its  dungeon,  our  thoughts  cannot  help  follow- 
ing in  speculation  the  path  along  which  they 
moved  after  emerging  from  the  exhaustive 
pains  of  the  valley  of  death.  And  thus  the 
question  arises,  one  of  the  most  frequently  and 
earnestly  asked,  "  What  is  the  state  of  a  de- 
parted spirit?"  It  has  been  asked  by  many 
here  when  the  waves  of  bereavement  have 
flooded  their  hearts.  It  is  asked  by  all  who 
are  aroused  from  the  stupefying  power  of  this 
present  life  to  a  recognition  of  the  life  to  come. 
Is  this  a  forbidden  question  ? 


236  CHRIST  US  CONSOLATOR. 

Does  God  say  to  our  curious  spirits,  stand- 
ing at  the  gates  of  death,  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou 
come,  and  no  farther?  "  Has  he  created  such 
a  fence,  dropped  such  a  veil,  between  this  world 
and  the  next  that  of  it  we  cannot  catch  the 
least  glimpse,  strain  we  our  eyes  ever  so  tire- 
somely  ?  Is  even  to  guess  at  the  fate  of  the 
departed,  sin  ?  Every  irrepressible,  God-given, 
and  God-blessed  affection  denies  this  to  be  his 
will  concerning  us.  Every  onward  running 
thought  of  our  minds  confutes  it.  Every  in- 
stinct of  our  nature  permits,  nay,  demands,  its 
indulgence. 

The  language  of  inspiration  conspires  with 
these  aspirations  of  our  nature  and  is  full  of 
references  to  the  state  of  departed  spirits.  It 
presents  the  condition  of  good  and  bad.  From 
Job  the  eldest  to  Revelation  the  youngest 
of  the  Scriptures,  God  the  Holy  Ghost  has 
brought  before  immortal  man  more  than  hints, 
even  gives  direct  and  unavoidable  testimony 
as  to  the  state  of  the  dead.  Christ  in  his  para- 
bles, his  reproaches,  his  discourses,  presents  it. 
We  have  no  controversy,  then,  with  those  who 
make  this  a  subject  of  examination.  We  do 
not  believe  the  paths  of  speculation  are  forbid- 


THE  ENIGMA   SOLVED.  237 

den  if  we  tread  them  with  reverent  feet,  with 
a  recognition  of  the  only  source  of  knowledge 
on  this  subject,  the  word  of  God  illuminating 
the  nature  of  man  ;  and  with  a  recognition 
also  that  the  only  object  for  which  these  dis- 
closures are  made  is  to  lead  us  to  see  that  the 
essential  evil  of  man  is  sin,  and  his  chief  work 
to  obtain  Christ  and  holiness. 

Ought  we  to  allow  a  solitary  thought  to  wing 
its  way  into  those  unknown  skies?  Should 
we  launch  our  bark  of  speculation  on  those 
untried  and  shrouded  waters?  We  have  an- 
swered. If  our  flight  conforms  to  the  known 
properties  of  those  spiritual  heavens,  we  shall 
not,  like  Icarus,  find  our  wings  melting  from 
us  and  ourselves  dropping  into  the  sea  of 
earthly  wandering  and  death.  If  our  vessel 
follows  God-given  charts  and  stars  and  compass, 
we  may  make  the  isles  of  the  blessed,  visit  in 
a  degree  that  undiscovered  country,  gain  some 
knowledge  of  those  coasts  that  are  nearest 
the  earth,  of  the  condition  of  those  inhabitants 
that  have  lately  landed,  through  the  surf  and 
amid  the  rocks  of  death,  upon  its  peaceful 
shores.  "For  now,"  says  the  apostle,  "we 
see,"    "  We  see,"  indeed,  though  it  be  through 


238  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

a  glass,  darkly;  or,  as  this  ought  to  read,  we 
see  as  in  a  glass,  guessingly — in  an  enigma 
is  the  very  word  used,  in  a  riddle,  in  a  guess. 
The  mirrors  that  they  used  were  of  steel  and 
brass  and  water,  and  as  the  reflection  in  these 
is  dim  and  dark,  yet  perceptible,  so  is  the  re- 
flection which  comes  to  our  eyes  as  we  look 
into  the  future  world  ;  and  as  the  figure  which 
we  see  is  a  reflection  of  ourselves,  so  the  por- 
trait we  draw  of  the  state  of  the  departed  soul 
is  a  reflex  and  image  of  our  own  state  here, 
the  representation  of  the  essential  features  of 
our  spiritual  nature  in  its  new  conditions  of 
being. 

We  shall  not  startle  you,  then,  with  novelties 
or  discoveries.  "  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the  heart 
of  man,  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared 
for  them  that  love  him."  "  I  was  caught  up 
into  the  third  heaven,  and  saw  things  which 
it  is  not  lawful  nor  possible  to  utter."  We 
know  nothing  which  has  not  been  known 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  We  can 
only  sift  the  few  grains  from  the  barns  upon 
barns  full  of  chaff*  which  the  silly  though 
half-pardonable   dreams   of   man    have    raised 


THE  ENIGMA   SOLVED.  239 

and  garnered.  The  Hindoo,  Indian,  Moham- 
medan, Papal,  Mormon,  Spiritualist,  Univer- 
salfst  heavens  we  pass  by,  with  all  the  stuff 
that  dreams  are  made  of,  which  are  found 
in  otherwise  evangelical  writings,  and  ask  the 
question,  What  does  God  in  his  word  and 
in  our  Christianized  consciousness  reveal  to 
us  as  to  the  state  of  our  departed  Christian 
friends?  We  say  "  Christian,"  as  we  wish  not 
to  look  downward  now.  We  would  stand  gaz- 
ing up  into  heaven.  We  will  follow,  so  far  as 
he  permits,  those  who  die  in  the  Lord.  We 
will-see  as  in  a  dark  steel  mirror,  guessingly, 
the  beloved  soul  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  who  is  led  by  the  Lamb  by  the  side 
of  the  still  waters,  in  the  midst  of  the  green 
pastures  of  glory. 

There  is  much  of  our  present  selves  that  we 
do  not  see  herein.  Our  bodies  are  all  blotted 
out  of  that  looking-glass.  Our  bodily  surround- 
ings, clothes,  food,  houses,  lands,  sceneries, 
cities,  animals,  trees,  factories,  railroads,  books, 
pictures — none  of  these  can  we  see,  even  ever 
so  dimly.  We  may  guess  as  we  will,  there  is  no 
foundationfor  our  guesses,  no  answering  of  these 
human  things  in  the  glass  of  heaven.    They  may 


240  CNR /ST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

be  there ;  they  may  not.  We  know  nothing ;  we 
have  no  right  to  believe  anything  about  their 
being  there.  We  do  not  see  in  this  glass  many 
of  the  inward  experiences  which  we  see  in  any 
mirror  that  reflects  our  inward  earthly  state.  In 
the  glass  of  heavenly  life  no  face  of  agony  is  seen, 
no  sigh  or  tear  dims  its  surface,  no  hunger,  or 
thirst,  or  sleep,  or  weariness,  or  sickness,  or  sor- 
row,  or  pain,  or  death  ;  none  of  the  grosser  ap- 
petites, none  of  the  unpleasant  experiences  of 
the  soul  here,  are  stamped  on  that  mirror. 
"They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any 
more;  neither  shall  the  sun  light  on  them,  nor 
any  heat."  "And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears 
from  their  eyes ;  and  there  shall  be  no  more 
death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall 
there  be  any  more  pain  :  for  the  former  things 
are  passed  away."  As  you  gaze  into  the  upheld 
glass  you  see  no  wan  face  pinched  with  poverty 
and  hunger;  you  see  no  bowed  Rachel  weep- 
ing ceaselessly,  refusing  to  be  comforted ;  no 
frame  twisting  and  tossing  with  the  rackings 
of  unspeakable  and  unendurable  pain;  no  face 
clad  in  the  ghastly  and  repulsive  features  of 
death  ;  all  these  have  passed  away,  blessed  be 
God,  have  passed  away  forever ! 


THE  ENIGMA  SOLVED.  241 

As  you  look  in  that  glass  you  see  not  the  re- 
flection of  the  tempter.  The  sneering,  scowl- 
ing, flattering  fiend  does  not  stand  at  your 
right  hand  as  he  does  if  you  look  aright  into 
the  glass  which  portrays  your  present  nature. 
No  besetting  serpent  sin  coils  around  your 
heart  there,  stealthily  poisoning  its  sweetest  and 
most  secret  juices.  Pride,  vanity,  lust  of  the  eye, 
lust  of  the  heart,  unbelief,  carnal-mindedness, 
dislike  of  duty,  are  the  legion  of  devils  which 
beset  and  surround  the  heart  of  the  best  Chris- 
tian, vVhich  are  present  to  his  eyes  whenever  he 
sees  that  heart,  and  which  possess  partially  the 
hearts  of  most  of  the  disciples  and  make  them 
timid,  time-serving,  and  half-hearted  Peters  and 
Thomases ;  all  these  vanish  from  that  specu- 
lum. The  soul  of  heaven  has  no  such  features 
upon  or  around  it. 

What,  then,  is  left  ?  Much  ;  all  that  is  valu- 
able and  enduring.  Wisdom,  love,  holiness, 
everything  needful  for  an  eternal  journey,  an 
eternal  abode  of  progressive  blessedness.  We 
shall  not  attempt  to  combine  these  elementary 
faculties  of  our  nature  in  their  heavenly  forms 
nor    measure    their     heavenly     development. 

Under  what  forms  and  degrees  love  exists  in 
16 


242  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

these,  how  can  we  realize?  Under  the  light 
in  the  currents  of  eternal  vision  and  influence  it 
must  swell  beyond  all  power  of  human  suspicion 
or  fancy.  The  sweeps  of  imagination,  the  swift 
and  vast  reaches  of  reason,  the  height  and 
length  and  depth  and  breadth  of  love,  what 
mortal  tongue  can  tell,  what  mortal  nature 
conceive?  What  then,  again  we  ask,  is  left 
for  us  in  this  glass  ?  What  did  Paul,  what  may 
every  one,  see  ? 

First,  a  consciousness  of  being  alive.  If  not 
conscious,  they  must  be  either  asleep  or  dead. 
None  believe  them  dead.  None,  it  seems  to 
me,  can  rightly  believe  them  asleep.  The  body, 
it  is  true,  is  said  to  sleep,  and  so  intimate  is 
their  connection,  so  certain  their  reunion,  that 
the  Bible,  as  a  book  eminently  human,  speaks 
sometimes  of  our  being  asleep  :  "  Our  friend 
Lazarus  sleepeth  ;  "  "  Those  also  who  sleep  in 
Jesus."  But  these  are  explainable  in  the  prac- 
tical oneness  present  and  to  come  of  the  soul 
and  body.  There  are  other  passages  which 
cannot  be  explained  except  on  the  ground  of 
the  conscious  life  of  the  departed.  "  To  depart 
and  be  with  Christ ;  "  "There  appeared  Moses 
and  Elias  talking  with  him  ;  "  "I  am  the  God 


THE  ENIGMA  SOLVED.  243 

of  Abraham. .  .  .  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead, 
but  of  the  living;"  "  I  am  thy  fellow-servant, 
and  of  thy  brethren  the  prophets  ;  "  **  This  day 
shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise."  In  every 
vision  of  the  Revelator 'where  the  departed 
souls  are  introduced,  they  are  awake  and 
active,  walking,  flying,  singing.  We  believe, 
then,  the  Scriptures  teach  that  the  heaven- 
gone  spirit  is  fully  aware  of  its  being  alive,  as 
conscious  of  its  life  and  all  its  attendant  motions 
as  when  in  the  body.  Aye,  as  much  more  con- 
scious as  the  heavenly,  disembodied  state  is 
superior  to  its  earthly,  flesh-walled  condition. 

We  see  in  this  mirror  a  continued  love 
for  their  earthly  friends.  "  Hearts  are  just ; 
hearts'  loves  remain."  The  last  motions  of 
that  heart  were  toward  the  dear  ones  that 
gathered  around  it  to  behold  through  raining 
eyes  its  departure.  That  father,  how  she 
yearned  toward  him  ;  that  mother,  how  devot- 
edly she  clung  to  her ;  that  husband,  how  his 
name  lingered  last  on  her  lips,  as  he  agoniz- 
ingly struggled  through  the  engulfing  waters 
of  death  to  grasp  her;  that  child,  how  it  sat 
strong  and  immovable  on  the  parental  heart 
while  other  loves  foundered  and  went  down ! 


244  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

And  shall  we  say  that  as  soon  as  this  heart  has 
escaped  the  body  it  ceases  to  love  ?  Away  with 
such  blasphemy  against  these  sacred  affections  ! 

If  God  loves  us  in  our  earthly  state,  shall  we 

« 

from  the  base  of  that  throne  whose  summits 
are  the  fountains  of  such  affection,  forget  and 
cease  to  love  our  earthly  friends  ?  If  Christ 
loves  the  Church  on  earth  as  much  as  that  in 
heaven,  shall  we,  when  we  have  presented 
there  the  certificate  of  our  membership  below, 
signed  by  the  Master  and  Head,  and  been  ad- 
mitted to  its  fellowship  and  duties,  find  our- 
selves void  of  all  interest  in,  or  love  for,  those 
we  have  left  behind  ?  God  forbid  !  That  soul 
in  heaven  is  as  full  of  love  as  when  it  beat  on 
the  heart  of  reciprocated  affection  through  the 
thick  folds  of  flesh.  How  happy  would  your 
child  have  been  could  it  have  had  you  accom- 
pany her  through  the  gates  into  the  city ! 
How  perfect  would  have  been  your  partner's 
bliss  in  receiving  and  obeying  the  summons  of 
the  Master  could  you  have  had  an  invitation 
too,  and  so  gone  to  the  marriage  supper  above, 
as  you  had  to  many  on  earth,  hand  in  hand, 
heart  in  heart !  This  feeling  is  not  interrupted, 
broken  asunder  by  death.-    It  is  modified,  per- 


THE  ENIGMA  SOL  VED.  245 

haps,  but  not  weakened.  The  loved  ones  there 
love  you  as  fondly  as  when  those  frozen  lips 
shot  forth  so  feebly  the  last  fires  of  their  love 
on  your  tearful  cheek.  But  you  may  say,  "  If 
they  are  so  loving  and  interested,  will  it  not 
affect  their  happiness  not  to  see  us  and  be  with 
us?"  We  answer,  If  they  know  we  are  serv- 
ing and  loving  God,  they  will  be  content,  in 
view  of  the  exceedingly  brief  space  which  shall 
elapse  before  we  shall  be  with  them  "  where 
He  is,  and  our  joy  shall  be  full."  If  you  would 
leave  your  house  for  a  happier  one 'with  but 
little  regret  did  you  know  the  rest  of  the  fam- 
ily would  follow  in  a  few  days,  if  you  would 
wait  in  unalloyed  content  the  return  of  a  loved 
one  who  had  left  the  room  but  for  a  moment, 
how  much  more  should  the  angelic  soul, 
though  full  of  love  and  desire  for  your  pres- 
ence, be  calm,  in  view  of  the  exceeding  brevity 
of  the  time  before  your  arrival,  compared  with 
the  eternity  you  will  spend  together!  You 
can  measure  the  time  between  leaving  the 
room  where  your  beloved  is,  and  instantly  re- 
turning, as  a  definite  portion  of  your  life,  but 
the  interval  between  your  entrance  into  heaven 
and  that  of  the  last  of  your  earthly  friends, 


246  CHRIST  US  CONSOLATOR. 

though  it  may  be  scores  of  years  in  length, 
you  cannot  measure  on  the  line  of  the  eternity 
which  shall  follow  that  reunion.  Hence,  the 
beatified  ones,  though  full  of  love  for  you  and 
longing  for  your  society,  are  not  pining  because 
of  your  absence ;  it  is  so  brief,  so  immeasur- 
ably minute,  beside  the  eternity  with  which 
they  are  constantly  comparing  it. 

But,  again  :  you  may  say,  "  If  this  affection 
does  not  breed  those  sickening  longings  in 
them  which  it  does  in  us,  though  our  love  for 
them  is  almost  infinitely  less  than  theirs  for 
us,  will  it  not  make  them  disturbingly  anxious 
for  our  salvation  ?  Will  not  their  sensibility 
of  sin,  their  knowledge  of  its  consequences, 
their  knowledge  of  our  peril,  make  them  un- 
easy in  their  heavenly  repose  ?  If  the  parents 
of  the  most  wisdom  and  piety  and  love  are  the 
most  anxious  for  the  fate  of  their  child,  how 
shall  they  not  be  tossed  with  the  fever  of  fear 
in  their  vision  and  feelings,  in  view  of  our  sin- 
fulness, in  view  of  the  entirely  Christless  life 
of  some  of  their  kindred  ?  '  I  answer.  We  make 
nothing  by  saying  that  because  this  is  a  neces- 
sary accompaniment  of  conscious  life  and  love 
here,   therefore   there    is    no    love    without    it 


THE  ENIGMA  SOLVED.  247 

there.  Does  not  Christ  live  ?  Is  he  not  blessed 
forever  ?  And  yet  is  he  not  full  of  anxious 
affection  for  his  earthly  children?  Need  the 
parent  enjoy  less  religion  because  his  son  is  un- 
converted ?  The  souls  in  heaven,  like  those  on 
earth,  like  Christ's,  like  God's,  may,  must,  by 
purity  of  nature,  feel  these  fears ;  yet  they  know 
each  person  has  his  destiny  in  his  own  hands ; 
they  know  God  is  doing  all  he  can  do  to  save 
them  ;  they  know,  for  they  hear  him,  that  Christ 
is  interceding  for,  them  ;  they  know  that  the 
Spirit  is  going  to  them,  that  every  power  of 
God  is  engaged  for  their  salvation,  and  if  they 
refuse  they  refuse  for  themselves ;  they  alone 
must  bear  it. 

So  knowing,  so  feeling,  it  does  not  make 
them  miserable  to  see  the  sinfulness,  to  fear  the 
failure,  of  those  left  behind.  They  may  sorrow, 
but  still  they  rejoice  ;  they  may  say  even  in 
heaven,  as  Paul  did  on  earth,  "  I  could  wish 
myself  accursed  from  Christ  for  my  brethren, 
my  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh,"  and  yet 
say,  "  I  rejoice  evermore  and  in  everything 
give  thanks,"  The  other  view  dehumanizes 
the  saved  soul.  To  make  him  ignorant  and 
careless  of  us,  singing  and   shouting  entirely 


248  CHRIST  US  COX  SOLA  TOR. 

indifferent  to  our  fate,  full  of  conscious  life  yet 
totally  paralyzed  in  all  the  nerves  of  earthly  re- 
gard, because  these  nerves  may  thrill  with  anx- 
iety and  fear  as  well  as  delight,  is  making  him 
less  than  man ;  is  making  our  spirits,  like  the 
spirits  of  beasts,  go  downward  rather  than  up- 
ward when  they  leave  the  body.  It  is  enough 
for  a  servant  to  be  as  his  master ;  and  if  Christ 
is  anxiously  active,  yet  calm  in  an  unspeakable 
joy,  if  angels  rejoice  over  a  penitent  sinner, 
hence  must  sorrow  over  an  impenitent  one, 
then  these  latest  born  into  heaven  may  be  full 
of  active  love  for  us,  though  that  does  bring 
with  it  anxiety  for  our  salvation  and  sorrow  for 
those  who  are  impenitent. 

This  objection  is  from  the  common  root  of 
all  heresy,  namely,  that  it  is  impossible  for 
love  to  endure  the  presence  of  sorrow.  God 
cannot  endure  sorrow,  some  say,  therefore 
he  is  going  to  change  it  all  to  joy.  God  can- 
not, others  say,  therefore  he  is  going  to  put 
out  of  existence  those  whose  character  can 
only  result  in  sorrow.  Departed  friends  can- 
not, hence  they  do  not  know  anything  about 
us.  Our  cure  for  all  this  is  man's  free  agency. 
Self-responsible,  with  all  the  powers  above  and 


THE  ENIGMA  SOL  VED.  249 

beneath  crowding  around  him,  he  moves  on 
his  own  track  to  heaven  or  to  hell.  We  love, 
angels  love,  God  loves  him,  but  his  way  we 
cannot  control.  We  will  love  him,  God  will 
love  him,  though  he  makes  his  bed  in  hell. 
But  this,  because  he  is  master  of  his  own  fate, 
and  follows  his  own  nature,  shall  not  rend  our 
hearts  with  incurable  sorrow. 

A  query  arises  under  this  head,  natural  but 
not  necessary :  "  Do  these  loving  friends  com- 
mune with  us  ?  "     We  are  apt  to  say  they  do. 

"Oft  the  forms  of  the  departed 

Enter  at  the  open  door  ; 
The  beloved,  the  true-hearted. 

Come  to  visit  me  once  more." 

We  see  them  in  our  room,  at  the  grave,  in  our 
dreams,  in  our  hours  of  temptation,  in  our 
hours  of  sin,  in  our  hours  of  victory.  There- 
fore we  say  they  are  here.  This  is  the  keynote 
of  the  success  of  Spiritualism — the  impression 
that  our  friends  are  round  about  us,  and  our 
desire  to  have  them  near  us.  Do  you  find 
this  reflected  in  your  mirror?  we  ask  St.  Paul. 
No  response  is  returned,  no  hint  that  this  is 
the  case ;  not  one.  No  such  image,  it  seems 
to   me,  is  drawn   upon    the  true  glass  which 


2S0  CHRISTUS  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

gives  us  shadowy  hints  of  the  departed.  There 
are  ministers  sent  forth  to  minister  unto  them 
who  shall  be  heirs  of  salvation — unto  no  others. 
Remember,  these  lately  gone  maybe  appointed 
for  that  work,  and  they  may  not  be.  We  have 
no  ground  in  reason  or  revelation  for  asserting 
this  to  be  a  fact ;  we  have  ground  for  assert- 
ing they  are  somewhere  and  together.  "  In 
my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions.  ...  I  go 
to  prepare  a  place  for  you.  And  if  I  go  and 
prepare  a  place  for  you,  I  will  come  again,  and 
receive  you  unto  myself;  that  where  I  am,  there 
ye  may  be  also."  "  Father,  I  will  that  they 
also,  whom  thou  hast  given  me,  be  with  me 
where  I  am."  John  saw  them  all  together — 
a  multitude  that  no  man  can  number.  If  in  a 
place,  then  they  are  not  scattered  over  the  earth ; 
they  are  not  forever  abiding  in  this  gross  and 
lower  air,  full  of  colds  and  heats,  storms  and 
darkness,  sin  and  corruptions ;  they  are  where 
John  saw  them — in  the  paradise  of  God.  I  see 
no  warrant  for  believing  them  to  be  always 
near  us  ;  I  see  many  things  against  it.  One 
is  that  we  should  fall  into  the  absurdity  of  our 
friends  who  call  up  the  spirit  of  Webster, 
or  Swedenborg,  or  some  other  worthy,  in  a 


THE  ENIGMA  SOLVED.  251 

hundred  places  at  once,  places  hundreds  and 
even  thousands  of  miles  apart.  A  medium  is 
profaning  this  sacred  hour  in  Boston,  probably, 
another  in  New  York,  another  in  Chicago,  and 
so  on  in  a  score,  possibly  in  a  hundred,  places, 
professing  to  embody  the  spirit  of  Washing- 
ton, Lincoln,  Franklin,  or  some  other  departed 
person.  We  should  be  like  them  if  we  be- 
lieved our  brother,  or  sister,  or  child,  or  moth- 
er, present  with  us  at  the  same  time  that  other 
relatives  miles,  perhaps  milliards  of  miles,  away 
believed  they  were  with  them.  I  see  no  ground 
for  this  impression.  They  are  interested  in  our 
course  ;  they  may  be  aware  of  our  state  ;  but 
this  is  more  likely  to  be  through  the  information 
which  souls  leaving  us  for  them  shall  carry  to 
them  than  through  their  own  personal  over- 
sight. As  friends  are  ever  ascending  from  our 
side  to  theirs,  so,  like  news  brought  to  us  from 
absent  ones,  by  those  going  from  us  to  them 
do  they  ever  learn  of  our  prosperity  or  adver- 
sity, health  or  sickness,  faithfulness  or  sinful- 
ness, rejoice  as  they  hear  of  our  approach  to 
them,  in  the  training  of  our  hearts  in  grace, 
and  in  the  good,  though  to  us  painful,  provi- 
dences of  God.     This  is  the  farthest  we  can 


252  CHRISTUS  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

legitimately  go  ;  this  we  can  fairly,  scripturally, 
rationally  conceive ;  all  beyond  is  fable,  hav- 
ing, perhaps,  some  basis  of  fact,  perhaps  not. 

One  question  may  come  in  here,  often  asked 
and  answered,  yet  still  asked  :  "  Shall  we  know 
our  friends  when  we  reach  heaven  ?  "  Did  Paul 
see  this  darkly  ?  This  is  one  of  the  urgent  cries 
of  our  hearts.  Out  of  our  darkness,  out  of  our 
sinfulness,  we  plead  for  light  here.  We  cry 
with  the  poet, 

"Shall  I  know  them  in  the  sphere  which  keeps 
The  disembodied  spirits  of  the  dead  ?  " 

Is  there  any  ground  for  hope  ?  It  seems  to  me 
no  hope  that  does  not  belong  to  salvation  itself 
is  better  anchored  than  this.  Did  not  that 
peculiar  nature  that  has  but  lately  left  you,  a 
soul  unlike  any  other  in  your  family,  go  in  its 
own  unchanged  nature  to  God  ?  Has  not  its 
memories,  its  loves,  its  thoughts,  its  whole  be- 
ing, passed  thus  to  him  ? 

Then  when  you  meet  it,  your  soul,  which 
grew  to  it,  like  a  double  cherry  that  is  part- 
ed, and  yet  though  parted  is  united,  shall  as 
easily  recognize  it  as  your  face  would  its  face. 
Yea,  more  easily.     For  heart  sees  heart,  love 


THE  ENIGMA  SOLVED.  253 

melts  into  love,  as  much  more  quickly  and 
surely  than  face  detects  face,  as  spirit  is  supe- 
rior to  matter.  Did  not  the  three  disciples 
recognize  Moses  and  Elias?  Does  not  every 
redeemed  one  see  and  know  the  Lord  Jesus  ? 
Did  not  Abraham  and  Lazarus  become  ac- 
quainted? And  if  you  can  become  acquainted 
with  others,  how  can  you  help  knowing  your 
own  kindred,  your  own  heart  and  soul?  No 
doctrine  that  is  not  declared  in  so  many  words 
in  the  Bible  is,  in  my  opinion,  better  estab- 
lished than  this :  we  shall  know  each  other  in 
heaven. 

But,  again,  to  return  from  these  obstinate 
questionings  to  clearer  revelations.  The  re- 
deemed souls  we  see  as  in  a  mirror  are  greatly 
interested  in  the  cause  of  Christ.  They  may 
be  interested  in  other  good  things,  progress, 
prosperity,  purity,  freedom,  intelligence ;  but 
of  these  we  know  nothing.  These  may  be  so 
small  and  trivial  as  not  to  awaken  any  especial 
interest.  They  are  but  for  a  moment;  they 
are  soon  abandoned.  Slavery,  poverty,  sick- 
ness, all  will  be  cast  off  soon.  But  relig- 
ion, the  success  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  the 
salvation  of  sinners,  the    spiritual  prosperity 


254  CHRIST  US  CON  SOLA  TOR. 

of  the  Church,  these  things  the  angels  desire 
to  look  into.  They  rejoice  over  one  sinner 
that  repenteth.  They  are  ministering  spirits 
to  the  Christian  or  are  intimate  with  those 
who  are.  They  know  for  what  Christ  died,  the 
value  of  heaven,  the  deliverance  from  perdi- 
tion, the  redemption  of  a  soul.  How  their 
experience  magnifies  this  work  !  As  you,  when 
you  became  a  Christian,  felt  a  wonderful  en- 
largement of  heart  in  these  matters,  as  you  love 
the  Church  and  are  unspeakably  anxious  for  the 
salvation  of  sinners,  so  they  are  as  much  more 
devoted  to  this  chiefest  work  of  God  as  the 
experience  of  heaven  is  more  than  the  expe- 
rience of  earth.  Much  as  they  may  love  their 
relatives,  they  will  love  the  Church  more.  That 
is  the  ark  on  the  mighty  waters  of  iniquity,  that 
the  pillar  of  fire  in  the  night  of  universal  sin 
and  death,  that  the  only  visible  instrument  of 
salvation.  For  this  they  pray,  to  upbuild  this 
they  would  gladly  leave  the  glories  and  the 
rest  of  heaven.  That  this  is  the  fact  every  re- 
deemed soul  can  see,  not  only  darkly,  but  with 
the  clearness  of  noonday. 

Finally,  they  see   and    love  Jesus.      What- 
ever doubts  overhang  the  lower  relations  of  the 


THE  ENIGMA  SOL  VED.  255 

translated  Christian,  no  cloud  settles  down  on 
the  summits.  If  they  forget  father  and  mother, 
they  do  not  forget  Christ ;  if  they  know  not 
us,  they  know  him  ;  if  they  cease  to  love  us, 
they  cease  not  day  or  night  loving  and  praising 
the  Lamb.  In  the  conversation  of  heaven  they 
will  ask,  "  Did  Jesus  descend  from  the  throne 
of  awful  glory  where  he  now  sits?  Did  he 
lay  aside  that  glory,  leave  that  throne,  march 
through  those  endless  ranks  of  angels,  down, 
down,  down  to  me?  Didst  thou,  O  God*,  my 
Saviour,  go  through  all  that  poverty,  that  in- 
famy, that  servitude,  that  friendlessness,  that 
shameful,  that  awful  death  ?  And  all  for  me — 
me,  so  weak,  so  wicked,  but  now — so  full  of 
unbelief,  of  pride,  of  murmurings !  How  dare  I 
look  upon  thee  ?  how  shall  I  dare  to  praise 
thee?  "  It  hardly  seems  but  that  there  must 
be  weeping  then  when  these  visions  and 
thoughts  possess  the  one  new  born  into  that 
kingdom.    Ah,  yes,  they  shall  see  him  as  he  is  ! 

"  They  shall  fall  at  his  feet. 
And  the  story  repeat, 
And  the  Lover  of  sinners  adore." 

They  shall  gaze  and  gaze  and  gaze  to  all 
eternity  on  Him  who  loved  them  and  died  to 


256  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

redeem  them,  to  whom  be  glory  and  dominion 
forever  and  ever.    Amen. 

These,  then,  are  the  features  of  that  portrait 
which  Paul  saw  in  the  mirror  of  heaven. 
These  are  all  we  can  positively  affirm  under 
the  light  of  Scripture  and  reason  of  the  inward 

state  of  the  redeemed conscious   existence, 

love  for  the  friends  they  have  left  behind,  love 
for  -the  Church  on  the  earth,  love  for  Christ ; 
all  other  exercises  of  their  nature  are  entirely 
problematical.  Their  employments  we  cannot 
talk  of  without  having  too  many  ideas  which 
are  solely  material  and  hence  totally  unadapted 
to  their  nature.  Their  rest  is  no  such  repose 
as  we  think  of.  The  Christians  who  struggle 
through  the  last  agonies  are  at  rest  in  all  that 
conflict  in  their  souls  ;  and  the  sinless  calm,  the 
deliverance  from  temptations  and  doubts  and 
fears,  is  all  the  rest  we  can  properly  ascribe  to 
them.  The  ranges  of  their  thought  on  themes 
of  salvation  we  know  nothing  about.  We 
know  a  few  letters  in  that  alphabet,  but  the 
language,  the  oratory,  the  poetry,  the  philoso- 
phy, the  music  of  that  theme  must  all  be  left 
to  the  unrevealed  life  of  heaven. 

Are  you  among  those  into  whose  dwelling 


THE  ENIGMA  SOL  VED.  257 

the  white-winged  messengers  have  come? 
Have  you  seen  the  eye  of  the  saintly  beloved 
lose  its  luster  of  intelligent  affection?  Have 
you  heard  that  loving  voice,  "  like  a  bell  with 
solemn  sweet  vibrations,"  grow  fainter,  fainter, 
fainter,  and  then  cease?  Have  you  been 
possessed  with  queries  and  doubts  as  to  their 
essential  life  and  love  now?  We  show  you 
the  glass  of  Scripture,  the  picture  of  inspired 
reason ;  they  live,  they  love,  they  love  you  > 
they  long  for  your  sanctification  ;  they  await 
in  a  sacred  flood  of  peaceful  bliss  your  ascen- 
sion to  their  seats;  they  may  join  their 
prayers  to  those  you  send  up  for  your  consola- 
tion ;  they  pray  for  your  salvation  if  you  are 
yet  in  your  sins  ;  the  whole  force  of  their  regard 
runs  in  this  holy  way  for  your  redemption,  for 
your  purification. 

If  you  are  a  Christian,  let  these  be  comforts, 
stimulants,  to  your  soul.  Believe  God's  word; 
believe  the  express  declaration  of  Christ ;  be- 
lieve the  workings  of  your  sanctified  heart, 
and  let  your  life  conform  to  this  belief.  Live 
so  that  you  shall  satisfy  them  if  they  are  per- 
mitted occasionally  to  visit  you  ;  live  so  that 

when   any   saint   ascends   from   your   side  to 
17 


258  CHUISTUS  CONSOLATOR. 

theirs  he  may  gladden  their  hearts  with 
tidings  of  your  faithfulness ;  live  so  that 
when  you  follow  their  shining  footsteps  others 
may  see  your  robes  in  the  transfiguring  glory 
of  that  hour,  white  as  the  light,  so  as  no  fuller 
on  earth  could  whiten  them,  and  they  may 
reclasp  you  to  their  hearts  with  a  recognition 
of  as  great  progress  in  you  under  the  limita- 
tions of  earthly  feebleness  and  temptation  as 
in  them  in  the  full  freedom  and  force  of 
heaven. 

And  if  you  are  not  a  Christian,  be  careful 
how  you  let  dreams  of  a  future  life  blind  you 
to  the  true  character  of  that  life  and  the  true 
way  of  obtaining  it.  Dreams,  it  is  an  old  and 
true  saying,  go  by  contraries.  Your  sleep  is 
full  of  realizations  of  wealth,  of  beauty,  of 
fame.  You  wake  to  poverty,  deformity,  igno- 
miny. The  devil  plays  this  trick  on  the  slum- 
bering sinner.  He  has  gorgeous  dreams  of 
heaven,  its  luxurious  ease,  its  easy  entrance, 
its  voluptuous  enjoyment,  all  the  stuff  that  is 
found  in  multitudes  of  journals  and  of  books 
of  this  day,  chaff  of  sleep,  with  not  one  grain 
of  true  wheat  in  its  swelling  heaps.  "  As  a 
dream  when  one  awaketh ;  so,  O  Lord,  when 


THE  ENIGMA  SOLVED.  259 

thou  awakest,  thou  shalt  despise  their  image." 
Yes,  every  image  you  see  or  hear  in  this 
glass  of  futurity  that  does  not  see  salvation  by 
faith  in  Christ  and  by  works  of  righteousness 
which  his  grace  alone  has  enabled  you  to 
do — every  such  image  is  a  delusion,  a  lie. 
"  Awake,  thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the 
dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light."  Ask 
yourself  as  you  see  the  souls  of  beloved  ones 
wading  through  these  waters,  ask  yourself  the 
solemn  question  of  the  poet : 

"  Into  the  Silent  Land  ! 

Ah  !  w/io  shall  lead  me  thither? 

Clouds  in  the  evening  sky  more  darkly  gather, 

And  shattered  wrecks  lie  thicker  on  the  strand. 

IVAo  leads  me  with  a  gentle  hand 

Thither,  O  thither, 

Into  the  vSilent  Land?" 

Soon  you  must  go,  soon  will  the  tides  of 
life  flow  less  and  less  along  those  vehement 
nerves  of  yours,  those  tensioned  muscles,  that 
ceaseless  soul ;  soon  you  must  lie  down  help- 
lessly and  let  the  stern  foot  of  Death  trample 
out  your  life  with  whatsoever  measure  of 
agony  he  chooses  to  mete  out  to  you.  Soon 
you  must  be  drawn  into  that  awful  machinery, 
and,  like  the  raw  material  in  the  grasp  of  its 


260  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

iron  masters,  your  ragged  and  worn-out  body 
will  be  seized,  regardless  of  all  your  struggles 
and  shrieks,  regardless  of  all  your  bribes  and 
tears,  regardless  of  your  wealth,  your  beauty, 
your  wisdom,  your  duties  to  your  family.  It 
will  drag  you  between  the  crunching  rollers, 
through  its  twisted,  rending  wheels,  and  you 
will  come  out — what  ?  Essentially  the  same 
as  you  went  in.  With  every  outward  feature 
changed,  every  inward  characteristic  will  re- 
main. If  your  nature  had  Christian  love  and 
Christian  grace  as  its  second  and  eternal  char- 
acter, that  is  there,  transformed  in  the  lus- 
trous, living  perfections  of  heavenly  life.  If  it 
is  not  there,  the  shapeless  mass  assumes  the 
horrid  features  of  a  fiend.  The  restrained 
nature  asserts  its  sovereignty.  Christ  gathers 
to  himself  those  that  are  his !  Satan  claims 
and  stamps  his  own !  He  who  manages  and 
moves,  he  who  hath  the  keys  of  death  and 
hell,  who  openeth  and  no  man  shutteth,  who 
shutteth  and  no  man  openeth — he  assigns 
these  diverse  products  to  their  appropriate 
storehouse.  "  They  shall  come  forth,"  he 
says,  "  they  that  have  done  good  unto  the 
resurrection  of  life,  they  that  have  done  evil 


THE  ENIGMA  SOL  VED.  261 

unto  the  resurrection  of  damnation."  May  we 
cry  mightily  and  ceaselessly  unto  God  that  he 
may  give  us  that  holy,  that  divine  love  and 
life  that  shall  brighten  and  strengthen  as  the 
darkness  and  helplessness  of  death  increase, 
that  shall  make  us  to  burn  and  throb  around 
his  throne. 

Then,  then  the  mirror  vi^ill  be  changed.  We 
who  can  but  dimly  see  parts  of  ourselves  in 
this  glass  now,  who  see  these  parts  as  in  the 
blurred  plate  of  the  photographer,  with  no  ap- 
prehension of  the  new  developments  that  may 
be  made  after  the  picture  is  taken,  with  no 
knowledge  of  other  expressions  and  powers 
not  there  revealed,  shall  then  see  face  to 
face,  as  a  clear  glass  reproduces  your  exact 
form.  As  a  magnifying  glass  presents  your 
enlarged  features,  so  then  clearly,  intelligently, 
largely,  shall  you  see  yourselves.  Now  we 
know  in  part,  then  we  shall  know  even  as  we 
are  known.  We  shall  apprehend  all  that  we 
are  apprehended  for  of  God  ;  we  shall  see  our 
nature  as  in  its  vastness  and  minuteness;  we 
shall  see  ourselves  as  God  sees  us.  What  a 
promise  !  Do  you  believe  it  ?  Every  one  that 
hath  this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself  even  as 


262  CHRIST  US  CON  SO  LA  TOR. 

God  is  pure.  God  grant  that  we  who  grope 
after  these  elementary  truths  in  the  darkness 
of  earthly  ignorance,  and  amid  the  storms  of 
earthly  sorrow,  may  follow  the  true  and  suffi- 
cient though  feeble  light  he  has  given  us  ;  may 
not  be  blinded  by  the  false  lights  the  flatter- 
ing and  bewildering  enemy  has  kindled  all 
around  us ;  may  walk  steadfast  in  the  way  of 
penitence  and  prayer  and  praise;  may  awake 
in  his  likeness ;  may  see  these  stars  of  night 
which  we  have  Avatched  and  followed,  while 
others  have  filled  their  drowsy  souls  with  se- 
ducing dreams ;  may  see  them  fading  into  the 
dawn  of  death,  into  the  sunrise  of  the  heavenly 
morn,  into  the  blaze  of  everlasting  noon  ! 


NOTES. 

I.  This  sermon  appeared  in  the  New  York  Christian  Ad- 
vocate January  6,  1881. 

II.  This  sermon  was  written  February  19,  1849.  It  was 
first  preached  at  Amenia  Seminary,  New  York,  March  4, 
1849.  It  was  afterward  preached  at  Wilbraham,  Mass., 
February  26,  1854  ;  Roxbury,  Mass.,  February  20,  1857  ;  and 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  September  9,  i860. 

III.  This  sermon  was  preached  at  Amenia  Seminary  in  May, 
1848  ;  at  Roxbury,  October  24,  1858  ;  Cambridge,  April  29, 
i860  ;  and  Maiden,  Mass.,  April  5,  1863. 

IV.  This  sermon  was  written  at  Maiden  on  Friday  and  Satur- 
day, October  14  and  15,  1S64.  It  was  preached  the  follow- 
ing day,  October  16,  1864,  at  North  Russell  Street  Charge,  in 
Boston,  Mass.  It  was  preached  at  Bennington  Street,  East 
Boston,  in  December,  1864  ;  Winthrop  Street,  Boston,  Jan- 
uary 9,  1865  ;  Tremont  Street,  Boston,  March  26,  1865 ; 
Fitchburg,  Mass.,  May  25,  1865  ;  Bromfield  Street,  Boston, 
August  10,  1865  ;  Clinton  Street,  Newark,  N.  J.,  November 
12,  1865  ;  Maine,  August  16,  1868  ;  Westfield,  Mass.,  July 
II,  1869;  and  the  Baptist  church.  Maiden,  June  27,  1869. 

V.  This  sermon  has  the  following  note  prefixed  :  "  Sacred 
to  the  memory  of  Georgie  (Georgie  w;is  his  firstborn),  who 
died  Monday  eve.  June  12,  1854,  at  7:40  o'clock,  and  was 
buried  Wednesday  eve,  June  14,  at  5  o'clock."  "  This 
sermon  was  commenced  Thursday  afternoon  and  finished 
Saturday  afternoon."  It  was  preached  at  Westfield,  Novem- 
ber 17,  1856.  The  lines  that  precede  the  sermon  were  affixed 
to  the  manuscript  as  a  "  dedication." 


264  CHRISTUS  CONSOLATOR, 

VI.  This  sermon  was  wrilten  at  Maiden,  Saturday,  October 
I,  1864,  and  preached  at  North  Russell  Street,  October  2.  It 
was  also  preached  at  Roxbury,  September  11,  1870. 

VII.  This  sermon  was  "written  on  the  occasion  of  the  re- 
burial  of  a  young  lady  who  was  one  of  the  first  that  went  forth 
to  teach  the  freedmen  soon  after  the  capture  of  Port  Royal, 
an4  whose  remains  were  borne  back  to  Boston  after  lying 
some  months  in  the  grave." 

IX.  This  sermon  was  written  in  Roxbury  on  the  occasion  of 
his  sister  Anna's  death,  which  occurred  .Saturday,  May  23, 
1857,  at  3:30  P.  M.  The  sermon  was  "commenced  May  30,  at 
10  A.  M."  "I  wrote  till  4  P.  M.,  and  finished  it  Sabbath 
morning,"  his  notes  tell  us.     It  was  the  "  first  sermon  read 

after  Mary's ,  April  22."      So  the  notes  read.     Mary 

was  bis  wife.     He  was  rarely  able  to  speak  of  her  death. 


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